Thread: An Artifact, A Girl, and a God. |Lagerthas x BlackTalon|

Naari had felt warm, but she had assumed that was from the warm body of water that consumed her form. That, and the metal pressure on her right leg that had made it immobile. She had felt the scorching feeling of water passing into her lungs, through her nostrils and mouth. For a few moments she had panicked before passing out, her hand gripping tightly to the less than pleasing remains of a necklace. Her skin had turned pale, even when her mind began to shut down. Dying. Naari had never thought about dying. She had only thought about it really after her grandmother's departure from the world, but not in a sense she was thinking about it for herself. No. The thought had stirred on what her grandmother might have been dreaming, if she had been dreaming when she had been in a coma. Naari had wanted to know what she had seen in her final moments, if she had seen anything at all, and she had wondered what the other side might have looked like..what her mother had looked like and if her mother was even there awaiting her grandmother. After all, Naari had been too young to know why her mother had left, but she had been raised with the after effects of her mother's death. The way her grandfather had crouched over in the chair screaming and crying over her death, over his only daughter's untimely demise. She had listened to stories from her grandmother on how close the two of them had been, though they had not been blood related. Her grandmother and Mother. Apparently, Naari had been given a different name at birth by her mother, something along the lines of Amira, but when her mother had left Naari had only been willing to say one word. Naari. She remembered the smile on her grandmother's face, the tears in her eyes about the conversation. You would only say Naari for the two years after she left. Naari couldn't recollect that time, or anything before her mother leaving. She didn't remember her mother at all, or the fire her father had started when her mother had refused to give him anymore drug money. However, she remembered her grandmother talking to her about this name, and why she had said it for two years after her mother left. Naari had originally been her late mother's name, and she herself, the girl, had screamed for her mother for the two years before her mind had shifted and deleted that part of her life. In fact, until she was drowning Naari had forgotten all about that woman. Her grandmother realized she had no longer remembered her own name, so used to calling for a name with no reply, she could only recognize people talking to her when they said her late mother's name. Her grandparents had legally changed her name after that, when Naari was seven to her mother's name in her memory and to help Naari herself move past a time she could not comprehend at her age. She knew some people believed they would have a sign at the end of the tunnel when it was their time to pass. So she waited, expecting to see some form of a door to tell her to pass on, but instead Naari was greeted with something entirely different. She knew she was dying, her lungs were filled with water, and she wondered what might happen next. Then, when Naari thought she would only be greeted by darkness she saw the shifting in lights in front of her, what she had thought was her spirit leaving it's body. Not only that, she could make out the movements of bodies in front of her, two to be exact, and a soft hint of a smile she fondly remembered. ' Is this death?.. ' Naari had wondered, watching the figure look at her, smile at her. The woman looked like her, acted like her, but this wasn't the woman she had remembered leaving her as a five year old child. She was healthy, happy, and she could see the silhouette of her grandmother behind her dancing in the light. Or at least what her spirit recognized as her grandmother, as the younger version of this elderly woman left Naari confused. 'No..Not for you..' The woman spoke, smiling but Naari felt cold, yet warm at the same time. ' Then who are you? Where is this? ' Naari knew she was speaking in some sense, but she couldn't exactly feel her body. It felt like she was dreaming, and in a way she probably was. 'Someone you miss. Somewhere you don't belong...Wake up now.' Near death experience..Most people talk about floating above their bodies, about meeting their angels, their maker, the light, and Naari was left uncertain. She had assumed she had dreamt the strange day, all of it. Moving in, the hieroglyph, the drive, the crash, the drowning. After all, she could feel her body again, and she could tell she was breathing water free. After everything she expected to wake in her run down motel bed, coach roaches scurrying on the floor, dun beetles nesting in the right corner, the rusted pots on broken burners. She expected the smell of pee that lingered in the hallway to find it's way to her nostrils and abruptly wake her up. Luckus had offered to buy her a night's rest at a more up to beat hotel, but Naari had refused saying the man had given her too much already, so here she had wound up amongst the filth. She twisted on the unfamiliar sheets, not fully awake. The woman never so much worried about smearing makeup on sheets, she had never been that into makeup to begin with. Freely, she twisted around, her body jerking away from his rough textured hands. Naari had never really dated, though she had wondered quite a lot if Rox would ever ask her out on a date and what the date might be like. After all, she had been trying to find her own place in the world, trying to start her own life and be comfortable with herself. With Rox, she had felt normal, not like a crazy girl she had always viewed herself as. A damaged box needing repair. She knew all her cables inside were twisted, constrained. She knew certain events, certain names stirred up things she would rather never deal with, or had never wanted to. She knew in a certain light she had twisted herself so far that pieces of her no longer existed in a way they used to. Naari felt tainted. When her eyes fluttered open, blinking to try to stabilize the view in front of her, she yawned. The colors, the scents, the sounds, all were unfamiliar. Naari ran her fingers through her hair, catching them in a large chunk of mangled mess that was wet and dripping onto the sheets. It was only when his hand grazed her skin again that Naari jumped, tensing, jerking away and twisting her body unnaturally to look wide eyed at the figure. Her skin had just regained it's color, but now it turned pale again as her eyes remained on the figure. No doubt she pulled a few muscles in her neck doing an act, and twisted them more as she jerked her head to look around where she was. Where was she? Who the hell are you? Naari snapped pointing at Khepri. She noted, quickly, that he was naked, before realizing she was naked herself. What kind of messed up perverted dream am I having? Naari almost screamed the words, scrambling away from him and grasping her wet clothing. They were wet, the same clothing she had been wearing when she drowned. So she hadn't been dreaming, or she could have been dreaming now. Naari ducked down, on the other side of the bed where he couldn't see her. She began to pull back on her damp clothing, rather preferring to have them on then be naked. Her breathing intensified as she examined the room. The things in here, looked like things she had watched on the movies when they reenacted ancient Egypt. Though Luckus had told her quite a lot that the directors never would get it exactly right, because sometimes the truth was too hard to believe. Hollywood loved to dramatize things as well, but still the thought made her wonder if she was dreaming, dead, or in some really bad form of a prank. I'm going crazy. Naari finally noted as she pulled her clothes firmly in place, which was much harder since they were damp. She could see the hieroglyphs on the walls of his bedroom, the plants sprouting form pots that looked brand new. Her green eyes, wide, frightened, confused, scanned the marvelous flooring. She remembered this, but not how it appeared in front of her. Naari remembered the crumbled ruins, buried almost three hundred feet below the sand. She remembered the ladders, the equipment, the men helping her down and tying her up to make sure if she fell off the ladder she wouldn't fall to her death. She remembered wondering how Luckus could still do such a thing at his age, bending down, excavating sites, slamming hammers against rocks. She remembered the look on every-ones face Rox's, Luckus's, the way her lips parted in awe as they had unearthed the nearly fully in tact flooring. That was when Rox had given her a box that day, and Naari hadn't looked inside until the next day. She found her hands on the flooring, her eyes scanning it as though she couldn't believe it looked like this. Her mind was trying to make sense of it all, for it had memorized every crack in the flooring, every tile that had been removed long ago from thieves. Yet here it was, as though it had only been here for a few years. The only way her mind could make sense of it, being able to feel the cool flooring and the scents and sounds was the fact she must have been dead. Naari's eyes twitched at the thought, she remembered drowning, but if she was dead what happened to the vision of her mother and grandmother dancing? Where is she? Naari found herself asking, she scrambled to her feet, though she had not put her shoes back on or socks. Naari only stood at 5'4 with no footwear on. Where are you hiding my mother? Naari demanded.