Syntyche sighed and leaned against a building with an overhead canopy, scowling up at the sky.
Why couldn't Mother have chattered on about what she did with her life before she came to the Grove. It was a motherly thing to tell stories about what their life was like before becoming mothers... at least that was what she understood from hearing her friends' tales. Though, they usually complained about it, and at the time Syn considered herself lucky that Mother didn't. She distinctly remembered bragging about it after listening to a particularly repetitive gripe.
My mother doesn't do annoying things like that. Who's got the better mother now huh?
The memory made Syntyche cringe. It'd been the greatest thing then, but now it was an even bigger annoyance than she imagined listening to tales of pre-motherhood would be. She couldn't even remember what Father had to say about the subject, she'd just nod and utter nonsensical comments. Dammit.
Complaining about a lack of lead wasn't doing much for that lack of a lead... Syn grumbled and pushed herself off the wall, putting her hands in her pocket and trudged on, making a mental list of what she did have to go by.
She knew what her mother looked like, and if she was lucky she wouldn't be that different then she was nineteen-some years in the future. Mother had grey hair and had the same rainbow eyes she did. Rainbow colored eyes weren't all that common, and once a few months passed she could start eyeing any pregnant ladies she saw. It was fall now, she was born in the fall so her mother should be really big right now. Or... she stopped and counted on her fingers, just getting pregnant now. She hoped it was the former, pregnant ladies stuck out more.
And Father! If she found him she'd have to- Eeww... her nose was running. The last thing she needed now was a cold. Syn brushed the bottom her nose with the back of her hand. More liquid puddled against her upper lip and she clapped her hand against her nostrils, breathing through her nose. A drop flowed free of her palm and slid over her lip.
It tasted like rust.
"Son of a bi-"
What's this? A voice, different from her own internal monologue chimed. Literally, it rang through her mind and made her feel dizzy.
"Wha?" She reached her other hand out, pressing the palm against a doorframe and clawing at the trickle of blood under her nose.
Hmmm... a mimic, interesting. More ringing, more dizziness. She swayed and looked at the ground, the trickle became a flow and poured down her face, dripping onto her chest. She spat and wiped her lips again and again. As soon as she cleared them they seemed to be coated in blood again.
Silence is so much more admirable when one hasn't been asked a question. Who are you? The voice accenuated it's last three words, pounding them against her skull. Syn flopped against the doorframe and took a deep breath. The brassy taste in her mouth brought a mouthful of warm oily liquid from her stomach, she spat and it splattered against her shins.
"What're you," she spat again "doin' to me?"
Tsk, tsk, don't break the order. I ask a question, you answer, you ask, I answer.
Syn's ankles gave and she slid downward until she was half sitting on the backs of her thighs and half lying on the building. The hand she was using to wipe her mouth flopped down to her lap, the glove gleaming in a few places where it soaked up more than the fabric could hold. "Syn... I'm..."
Her temples pounded and her limbs ticced, knocking her on her back. A scratching sensation washed down from her head and clawed its way down her spine. Syn screamed and curved her back up, breaking her yell to sputter and cough when a line of blood slid down her throat. The sensation ripped from her spine into her limbs and whipped from there to her spine and back again, back and forth like a saw.
And as quickly as it started, it stopped, leaving Syn lying at the building's door. The muscles in her arms and legs fluttered lightly and her chest strained against her corset top as it rose and fell in deep, ragged breaths. Inside, her heart thundered against her ribs. A few patches of sweat joined the blood mask over her mouth and the line of tears beading at her eyes.
