The water is fine.
“How about this, I’ve just spent over half the day in an intensive strenuous workout of every part of my body, and the other half was spent laying down in the direct sun eating raw fish and letting small kids spill sticky sugar drinks all over me. I am not, and will not, give up this chance for a much needed bath. If either of you have a giant bar of soap you can drop this way, I’ll need it.”
There were no longer any joking comments about her stay in water.
“Does this help your wound at all?” Angel asks, a half shout as she’s paddling her way closer.
“Wounds?” Daniel blinks in confusion, spreading her wings horizontally instead of vertically to form a massive feathery blanket atop the surface of this lake. She could feel the cool transition where air became water tickle across her feathers. The rest of her submerged form acted as a boat, her claws grasping down to stab through dirt, stone, and clay, only to power herself forward on the lazy motion. Shoving, dragging through a thick green wind is what this lake felt like.
“On your wings, and your paws. Like right …”
“I don’t know what your talking about.”
Angel sighs heavily, drifting close enough to come around Daniel’s face. A hand stretches up to bap against part of her wing while another arm reaches down to feel across the shoulders.
“Here, and here, and I know I’ve seen some others. You were raw and scarped remember?”
“Oh. Right. The tree I ran into.”
“Those wounds, yes.” Angel grins, now leaning back and kicking her legs out. Reclining into the waves with her arms behind her neck.
“I’d completely forgotten about them, a lot’s been happening today.”
“Hard to believe it’s only been a day you know.” Angel nods in agreement. Keth hanging back at the water’s edge and simply staring at this distant pair.
“Haha, what are you complaining about? I’ve just had my entire life flipped around for basically no reason, I can’t find my mom, none of my friends know where I am, there isn’t a single credit card or stack of cash on me, I have no clothes, and I’m stuck trying to deal with three brand new body parts to match my entirely new body. A body that doesn’t even have hands! Gah, Hands! For a moment I wonder if I could somehow finagle these darned paws to open a doorknob, but then I realize I’m never going to find a door large enough for me to even fit!”
As the sphinx moans, largely isolated in a placid lake, no boats on the water and so very few people around to listen, she felt more and more devastated. Not only did she have so many annoying problems, but she was airing them at a complete stranger whom she’s just met this morning. And who’s hospitality she was depending on.
“well …” Angel starts.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I know none of this is your fault.” Daniel interrupts quickly, as she addles the lioness can feel her paws swiping through water where there should have been dirt. The sudden drop of height catching her off-balance.
“It isn’t that” the woman shrugs, slipping up behind Daniel’s cheeks and clambering atop those now sopping wet shoulders. “I honestly don’t know its like for whatever your going through, and honestly the thought of an entire family of giant sphinxes all living together and spouting riddles to pass the time sort of terrifies me. And excites me. Does that make this Terrasciting?”
“I’m not a sphinx Angel, I’m a human. We’ve been over this …”
But the woman outright ignores her.
“For me this day was a fairly typical annual vacation, we go to the same spots in the same order and do the same things we always do. Then suddenly a giant monster swoops down from the skies and demands our treats!”
“I wasn’t demanding.” Daniel huffs.
“You were making those kittycat googly eyes and begging, that’s totally a demand.”
“I was not!” now the winged lioness outright startles, taken aback by an unimaginable accusation.
“So then here I am petting and talking to a real life monster lion, that sleeps in our camp and doesn’t see a problem hanging out with us. Completely out of the blue, nothing is the same, nothing is identical, suddenly this whole trip feels like an adventure and I’ve stumbled across a tame fantasy that got lost trying to find the end of a children’s pop-up book.”
“I can pop up and throw you off, you know that right.”
“Do you want to know what happened to me after that? I got to FLY! I was flying Daniel, do you have any idea what that feels like for the first time?” She leans forward and wraps her arms tight around Daniel’s neck, grasping onto the fur and looping her legs forward just as when she was over the road.
“Yes I think I do.” The lioness gruffs.
“I have no idea what its like to have your whole life changed so drastically in the middle of the night, to wake up and find yourself in a weird nightmare dreamland. But I do know what it’s like to have your whole life suddenly, irrevocably changed in a single instant.”
“Huh …” Daniel is forced to admit. “Yeah I guess you would.”
“And through it all, from start to finish, through the terror and the excitement and even that one moment I thought I’d have to fight you with a stick, today has been wonderful. It’s exceeded all expectations. Its just … you’ve made this a day to remember, alright? So even if things don’t go well, even if nothing goes your way. I want you to know that you’ve made life fun. For me and for a lot of people just now.”
“Yeah …”
The winged lioness darts her head to gaze back at the beach. The parking lot covered in trees, the painted log building and it’s old style fashion. The numerous people near their cars or watching her through binoculars, so many absent from the lake itself. She could see Keth so very clearly, trepidations about entering the water, and Charley hanging back by his car just to lean on the hood.
Confusing or not.
Terrifying or exciting.
Today was undeniably a good day.
Written by Arbon on 12 February 2017