She the Strange

"What are you still doing here?" He spat in rage. He flung his hat on the ground, staring, eyes crackling with a fury beyond that which Jebbie had ever seen in her father.

"You are just a waste of time and money here! Do something useful! Run! Go! NOW!" Jebbie felt her iron will shatter inside of her, and she felt like inside of her was a growing cave of darkness that used to contain her courage which welled up, as proud and red as her own blood. She didn't care to think about that cave, and she quivered, boneless.

"You're no good here!" The old grey-haired monster with the beard, the strange familiar face of her father was contorted in a bestial rage. Was this man where she had come from? She trembled even more, feeling her muscles; everything about her which was strong and binding, melted into uncertainty, the only thing certain about it was that it was a killer of her certainty. Her resolve, which once had the power to bend bows, now crumbled into dust, cowering at mirages of arrows.

"You can't stay here!" Yelled the man from whom she came. Jebbie wish she could say 'with a possessed frenzy,' but it WAS her dad, not some demon she could conveniently blame this on; that was worse. She, who once had beaten a Scyther with her bare hands now wanted to lie down and weep. In the back of her ears, she vaguely heard a woman singing, but she figured that was from the fear.

"Girlbitch! Get out NOW!" The man, from whom she might have come, screamed, spit flying from his mouth. She stared at him, and with the last fabric shred of dignity and courage she possessed, she said, "I will come back." It was the last bit of her old bravado, and then there was no more.

She turned tail and fled, running as fast as she could from what had been her home a million nanosecond-years before.

She ran, looking behind a bit as she did so, and tripped on a root. She felt trickling moisture on her head, then absolute darkness without hope.

She woke up, her thoughts flowing like a stream through her. She saw, in her mind's vision, the source of the stream: a cave made out of the face of her father. She sailed from it in a boat shaped like a phallus, the motors a pair of testicles. From these motors, out spilled blood, her own, and she knew it was her courage that was departing. She saw a very dark tunnel at the end of the water's streaming path, with a light at the end. As she focused her eyes, which were also copiously weeping her blood, she realized that it wasn't light at the end, but the reflection off of something metallic and sharp…

She opened her eyes, to find herself in a meadow, with a single bowed oak above her. She had tripped on the root, and now she was wondering where in God's name this meadow was; she hadn't run all that far from home, but it was unfamiliar to her.

She heard an indignant squawk above her, and saw a ferocious looking beast with knives for hands, and a green face with sharp teeth, and dagger-edged wings. She instantly cringed; had this beast brought her here for his dark purpose of eating? She brought her hands to her heart, by a pitiful childish human instinct as unstoppable as a typhoon.

The frightful creature extended a sword to her, and she hid her eyes with her hands, wishing it to disappear with her vision.

"D-d-d-d-don't" She pleaded. She had intended it to be a command; at least her mind remembered courage, even if it had been taken away.

The Scyther stared at her, and began to speak in a language she hadn't heard spoken since she was six and spent half of her time in the forest, to the point of learning the language of a native species.

"Have you forgotten me? It's Danny! You beat me within an inch of my life!"

"I suppose I did," she said ethereally. "I believe you were smaller then."

"I was barely hatched, maybe I was a foot and a half tall. Still!" He said amicably.

"Well, that's different now," she said, sad. "That's different now," she repeated, softer, weaker.

"Well yes, I'm six feet tall now, a foot taller than average," he said. He whacked her lightly on the shoulder with the flat of a blade.

"It's great to see you again, Jebbie," he said, his voice full of warmth. Even that light tap, however, had made her bleed and bruise. She stared at her blood, remembered how it had come from her eyes, and felt more strength leaving her. Her body went limp.

What happened? Danny asked, thinking of his playmate who feared nothing, who had the courage of four Scyther. He carefully picked her up, her body supported on the flats of his blades; she looked like a dead body. His old friend practically weighed nothing. Hearing music of a singing voice in his ear holes, he shook his head, and flew up slowly, his wing slicing a cut in the tree on the way up. He stumbled, and barely managed to catch her without stabbing her.

An individual in the tree felt the rush of the Scyther wind in the breeze, and he adjusted the violin on his chin. He stared down on the tree, and played a sad, mournful tune for the two injuries that had occurred that day: the shattering of a girl's courageous heart, and a scar that would mar the Forever Tree until it had been repaid. He hummed to himself, the Gardener did, wearing on his neck a large, delicate green stone. The Ghost flitting next to his head settled in his hair, and whispered in frigid last breaths something it found hilarious; it wailed in a screechy, supernatural laughter, cutting through the strange music that invaded their subconscious ears.

"Please wake up, Jebbie, we NEED to go!" Danny hissed. Jebbie opened her eyes, and shrunk away in fear from the monstrous insect.

"Nonono," he said to her in earnest. "It's me, your friend Danny!" He wondered why she looked so terrified.

"What are you saying? I don't understand you!" She said, filled with great fear. Danny growled in frustration, which Jebbie interpreted the wrong way.

"Don't eat me! I beat one of you in battle once!"

"But that was me…" He said mournfully, wondering that her ability to comprehend his language had gone completely and entirely away.

REVIEW PLEASE:

Point: even if the writing style is a stream of consciousness, I was not on drugs when I wrote this, I was just merely listening to odd instrumentals. Also, should it be continued? That story can end there and Danny can fly into the sunset with Jebbie looking for her lost courage.

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