Scars are tattoos with better stories.

[al-shairan.livejournal.com]

The body is but a pair of pincers set over a bellows and a stew pan and the whole fixed upon stilts.
- Samuel Butler

You're sick of hangin' around and you'd like to travel;
Get tired of travelin' and you want to settle down.
I guess they can't revoke your soul for tryin',
Get out of the door and light out and look all around.

Sometimes the light's all shinin' on me;
Other times I can barely see.
Lately it occurs to me
What a long, strange trip it's been.
- 'Truckin'', The Grateful Dead

January 6th, early evening

I walk along the southern road to Excolo, the grey halflight of a January day fading into a sullen sort of blackness. There is little charm in this weather, road hard packed with ice. As I get closer to the town I find the snow has been sprinkled with salt and grit, but to no great effect. I flip up the collar of my coat as if I need to shield myself against the cold.

This is a new body. I felt the desire for it, something with no history worked into its flesh. And I am not interested tonight in a body that encourages sexual desire; I have had enough of those for now. This body is a fine work of art, but it is not beautiful, skin slouching into wrinkles except where it is stretched tight across high flat cheekbones, hands knotted, greying hair. The body of a man of perhaps sixty, faint traces of age spots on his hands but as yet no tremor to them. A man who is sure of his step. A face that is lived in but gives little away, and eyes like bright sparks in a skull. Full small lips to take the edge off that steady cold gaze, to make it show the possibiity of kindness. Yes, it will serve.

I walk into town and find the tavern, hefting my bag as if it has some weight. When I set it down I sigh softly, as if relieved, and I roll my neck and click it.

"Hail friend," I say to the barman easily, "a toddy do you have to ease my bruised bones on this cold night?"

When the rum comes it steams, and I hold it in my mouth and let my cheeks splotch a grateful pale pink on the act of swallowing.

[OPEN]

Comments

[al-shairan.livejournal.com]

Gaueko follows at my heels as we walk out into the night, and then he shifts into his man form.

"So busy looking at me that they hardly noticed you. I almost wanted to spill the beans just to see the looks on their faces."

"An interesting night it was," I agree, and then I shake myself out of this body and into another, the gloaming-pale girl form. I do not want Uri seen with Gaueko yet, and I know this fragile body holds pleasant memories for Gaueko. "It has been some time since I saw you, friend," I say, voice now light and sweet, body swathed in a heavy coat.

[gaueko-erebus.livejournal.com]

The skin pales and smooths, the bones shorten and thin, the hair lengthens and darkens. And now walking beside me is the pale, toylike dogsbody that we played with so many months ago. Just the scent of it makes my cock stiffen.

Sugaar tells me it's been a long time, and I nod. "Kaixo aspaldiko," I say in agreement. "But then, you've been busy. Bored with the redhead yet?". I wonder if he's killed her yet. I doubt it. If that was all he'd wanted her for he'd have done it long ago.

[al-shairan.livejournal.com]

"But then, you've been busy. Bored with the redhead yet?"

I smile and turn around in the snow, putting my small hands up to Gaueko's lapels.

"Oh, dear friend," I say with a little laugh, "did you ever think I was interested in her for herself? If the fate-god had not barred you from seeing her," and here I raise my eyebrows a little to let him know what I think of that, "you would already have smelled out my purpose, unless you are less of a dog than I thought."

I link my arm in his, and we keep walking.

"And what have you been doing with yourself?" I ask. "Are you still grooming that girl to be your priestess?"