Pontifex Ursa – Part 5
I have no clue why there wasn’t a post Friday.
I have some weird vague memory of writing it on Friday. I distinctly remember sitting down with the blog open, typing away before swapping over to my NaNo project (more on that below). It’s weird.
Maybe I’ve reached a stage of critical saturation. I’ve done this blog a lot now. I do mean a lot. Over a year, and I’m approaching two hundred posts with grim efficiency. I have a lot of things I’ve done here that have transitioned into other projects, and some of them have become the seed of much bigger things.
It’s just strange that I swear up and down that I did things and see no evidence of them anywhere. I’ve lost a day of writing before, which is terrible, but I’ve never gaslighted myself into thinking I did or did not write a blog post.
Fun times! Welcome to Justin’s Story Corner, where stuff is done… maybe? I don’t really know anymore.
So, on the subject of National Novel Writing Month in the year of our Lord, 2017. That is going rather slower than I would like. I’m only a few thousand words into the project, and I’ve lost a lot of time this month to various life problems which show no signs of stopping. I’m basically going to give myself a pass, work really hard on things up until the end of the month, and co-opt a different month to be my own NaNo. Not quite what I had in mind, but this entire year hasn’t been what I had in mind.
So there’s that.
I wish I knew where the time has gone, since I’ve spent much of this year in some form of agony or another. Yet here we are, and the time has definitely gotten away from me. So be it. I’ll continue to write, with or without pay, until it works or I die.
Without further befuddled musings…
Pontifex Ursa – Part 5
The explosion cut through my peaceful repose like a falling ax, and as I swam to wakefulness, I instinctively reached out for Lilith sleeping beside me. It was a moment before I realized I was alone beneath my blankets.
A roar greeted the explosion, at once terrible and familiar. The voice of Lilith, raised in anger, stretched and deepened as though she had become an enormous bear entirely. I dressed, my haste making the process longer than it needed to be.
Clothes secured, coat on, I began looking around the darkened camp. The coals had burnt low in the fire pit we had slept beside, and the star filled night was somehow sinister. Tainted.
Another flowering of light and sound blossomed a few hundred meters from where I stood, and without knowing why I had done so, I began running towards it. Every instinct screamed at me to stay put, but I hadn’t seen Lilith anywhere and I needed to know she was safe.
I rushed through the sparse forest, heedless of the stingy nettle leaves as I ran. My breath and my heart were all I could hear, fear and terror pushing me faster still. I ran up a hill, and at its crest I stopped, my mind blank with the shock of what I was seeing.
Lilith was there. I assumed it was Lilith, anyway. The bear’s fur was the same color as Liliths, but it was four meters long. It moved with deceptive speed, and as my shocked mind came into focus, I could see why such alacrity was necessary.
The Lilith-bear was fighting an enormous, man shaped… something. It looked like it was made from metal, which was just insane. One of the four arms managed to catch the Lilith-bear across the flank, and the enormous creature was thrown away, skidding across the small clearing at the base of the hill into a tree.
The tree exploded, and the giant animal recovered almost instantly, roaring in defiance and anger at the blow. The metal brute pivoted, and an enormous… something dropped down from behind it. Daylight gathered at the tip of the thing, and I went blind as the tip flared and a lance of sunlight shot at the bear, striking it in the flank.
Another resounding boom followed, and I knew what had caused the horrible explosions that woke me. The bear roared, and it was full of pain and defiance and challenge all rolled into one tremendous wave of sound. The metal creature rocked as the wave of sound struck it, and even though the bear had a large hole from the lance of light, it still managed to close the distance and slam the monstrosity with a huge swipe of both front paws.
The monstrosity reeled, and one of the four arms went flying off into the night. The bear closed its enormous jaws around the cylinder which had produced the daylight weapon, and gave an almighty shaking wrench of its head. The cylinder tore away, and the large metal creature began thumping the area around the hole it had made with as many of its remaining arms as it could reach with.
The bear roared, this time it was an agonized sound, and it broke away from the melee to protect its wound. The metal creature stumbled a bit, and stars spilled forth from the various broken appendages. It seemed to rethink the current situation, and decided on making a hasty withdrawal.
Instead of leaving by foot, it shot more of the fake sunlight out of various places on the body. For a moment, I thought it had been destroyed, but my jaw dropped as I realized what was actually happening.
It was flying. Really, actually flying. Moving through the air as though it were some kind of bird. I’d read about birds, but that was the only place they still lived. I’d never actually seen one. The nodes of sun and fire flared brighter, and the metal thing gained speed, vanishing in moments over the horizon.
The bear sagged then, collapsing to the floor of the clearing with an enormous wheezing thump. It began to shrink as well, slowly changing as it lost size and shape. Eventually, all that was left was a very naked Priestess Lilith. She was moaning softly, trying to push herself to her feet blindly with one paw pressed to her stomach. A hole was burned through her, cleanly bisecting her midsection. It did not bleed, but Renton could see that it had gone right through her guts.
Lilith was surely dying. Renton wasted no more time, and ran down the hill towards her.
To be continued…
Rocketfully,
Justin
