Period Piece

You are the Warrior.

And life is a celebration.

On the winds of victory your spirit soars high, elation masks the strife you have endured for this moment. The beast lies slain, and in death gives you life. Your past becomes the blood pumping through your body, an indelible energy that powers your present.

But such joy cannot exist without fear skulking behind. The eternal, vigilant voice that lives beneath your mask watches warily for even the faintest twitch of the beast's broken body. Leisure is healing, but alertness is a lifeline.

And where there is one beast, there is always a friend. And where there are friends, there too is a family.

And one spear cannot kill a family.

"Nah, too clickbaity," Jacqui replied, taking a victory sip of coffee. "But thanks, I take great pride in my work."

"So I noticed!" Heqet agreed. "You vanquished that foe with APLOMB!"

"No, I did it with an umbrella," she corrected, tapping the frog's nose. "And I'll do it again, if any more of these jackasses wanna fight."

"Hmm," she agreed again, but warily this time. "Well, I sure hope that fellow wasn't our point of contact in the quest...".

"I wouldn't have done a quest for an asshole like him anyway," Jacqui replied, taking another sip of her drink. "That can't be the best my dream has to offer. I'm sure someone else in this buzzing chatterhole can carry a conversation like a normal person."

Heqet leapt up on Jacqui's shoulder, perched like her own pirate parrot companion. "Gosh, I really admire your courageous insistence on believing this world is nothing more than an intangible dream where no consequences await us for any sins we may accrue here!"

"What, you think this ISN'T a dream?"

"Who's to say?" Heqet shrugged. "All I know is that actions beget reactions, and you are definitely a creature of actions!"

"Hey, don't you make me question my choices," Jacqui warned, stuffing her phone back into her hoodie pocket. "I'm not awake enough for that kind of bull."

"Okay, you're the boss!"

"Damn straight I am."

"I concur," a third voice chimed in above the noise.

"Oh god, who is it now?" Jacqui groaned, turning to face the newcomer. They were seated - alone, surprisingly - at a nearby booth, sipping gently from a steaming cup of the most starless and bible-black coffee she had ever seen. And whoever they were, they were criminally over-dressed for the party, sporting a sharp teal business jacket and a derby pulled down low over their face.

Jacqui didn't notice Heqet's suspicious frown.

"Only a boss could do what you so effectively just did using nothing but an umbrella," the stranger said, black-gloved hands tearing open a packet of refined fake sugar crystals. "I'm almost sorry for inviting him over to your seat in the first place, since now I can't watch you do that again."

"YOU sent him?" Jacqui almost slammed her coffee on the table, but halted in better judgment, knowing better than to waste a good coffee. She wanted to be angry, but there was something about this person that felt very...off. Something worryingly askew.

"A shame I had to test you while you're on your period, though," said the stranger, with a sigh. "After all, what worse torment could there be on this earth than menstruation?"

Jacqui's eyes narrowed. The most disconcerting thing about...him?...her?...did it matter?...was the unsettling darkness over their face. Whether it was the low-light of the café, or strangely localized shadows cast by the hat, light just seemed to...bend away their face. No matter which orientation Jacqui tried tilting her head, a thin layer of darkness seemed to hover just above their skin like a murky, misty aura, suggesting features but not outlining them. It was a face that just wouldn't stay correct, like a malfunctioning hologram.

"...yeah...periods are pretty shitty," she finally agreed, some secret curiosity drawing her over to the booth. "I mean, there are probably worse things going on in the world right now - starvation, police brutality, gay correction camps, Republicans - but yeah, fuck periods."

"Hmm...no I think I'd still disagree," the shadow continued, adding another sugar. "I'd say menstruation is probably the worst, if not at least the most unnecessary, curse upon humanity there is."

...should I assume she's a lady, then? Jacqui wondered, still trying to keep gender inside a box. Hard to tell with a voice like that...sure I wish I could see that face...

"Really?" Heqet popped in, hopping down onto the edge of the table. "There's no known fate in the human world more dire than a little monthly placental expulsion and abdominal cramps? Huh...maybe humanity isn't quite as imaginative as I'd thought they were if that's the worst they can come with!"

"Well, it certainly doesn't sound as bad when you put it so...medically," the stranger replied sourly, giving Heqet an oddly sharp stare for a person with no eyes. "But then again, it's all about phrasing, isn't it? Perhaps if I described it in a more...poetic way..."

The voice dropped to an even lower, almost sensuous tone, difficult to hear over the background chatter. "...something like, 'a ritual of blood and daggers, a rite of sacrifice, several days and several nights of rending pain, again and again with each turn of the moon, from the day you blossom until the day you wither'...surely you'd agree now that that stacks up as a truly horrifying curse, wouldn't you?"

...fucking hell, take that voice any lower and my pants are coming off right now, were the words that suddenly formed in Jacqui's head as she bookmarked the character for later. Man, woman, ethereal bodiless being, I don't care...I would absolutely fucking tap that.

"Blood rituals wouldn't bother me, I don't think!" Heqet replied, cheerfully not being the one currently in menstruation. "To be honest, the idea of blood and pain feels...well, strangely familiar to me!"

"You say that with so much sunshine," the specter - yep, that was definitely gonna be their new name now, Jacqui had decided - said with a sparkling smile trailing after.

"Is that weird? For a frog goddess to say, I mean?"

"A what?" Specter asked, smile fading.

"A goddess," Jacqui abruptly interjected, her impulsive thoughts finally wrangled. "Yeah, that's probably why it feels familiar. Pagan rituals and stuff. Lots of blood, knives, probably some screaming somewhere in there. You were probably the exalted goddess of some cult of murderous weirdos who worshipped you by shankin' each other in the kidneys."

"Oh! You think so?" she asked with an excited hop. "You really think I could've had a cult following who offered me blood sacrifices and everything?"

"Settle down, holy shit," Jacqui answered, giggling as Heqet hopped back up on her shoulder. "I already told you I'm a lazy agnostic, I don't know jack daniels about religious shit. Don't take a word I say seriously."

Specter raised a hand to interject, but was interrupted.

"But I care about your opinions and interjections, Jacqui!" Heqet placed her tiny hands on Jacqui's cheeks affectionately. "After all, you know the rules of this plane of existence much better than I do, so your knowledge - or estimations thereof - are invaluable to me!"

Again, Specter's mouth opened to deliver a response, and again they were cut off.

"Aww, I should be so honored," Jacqui replied, more saccharinely than was necessary. "But why are you gettin' all bubbly and giddy about blood sacrifices, anyway? That's some pretty fucked up shit to squee about. You're a freak, ya know that?"

"We-elllll," Heqet replied with an indignant pucker of her big, froggy lips. "...sometimes it's just nice to imagine that people could care enough about you to openly spill the blood of the unworthy in your name, you know? That kind of thing can really do wonders for your self-confidence!"

Jacqui had no choice but to laugh out loud at that one. Not just a chuckle or a snorty guffaw, but a hearty, genuine laugh. She still had no idea from which corner of her illustrious imagination she'd summoned a character like Heqet, but she was almost starting to appreciate the fact that she had.

"Anyway," Specter finally cut in, loudly tearing the top off yet another packet of fake sugar, "We were talking about how impressed I was by your quick and effective application of violence against your first opponent in spite of your horrible curse affliction."

"Hey, yeah," Jacqui replied, hand on hip. "So what the fuck was that about, anyway?"

"I'm afraid I couldn't help myself," Specter grinned, or at least that was what Jacqui assumed. "I love a good show, and I have a bit of a going reputation as a grade A troublemaker."

"More like grade F," Jacqui grumbled, face folding frownward as her grip on the umbrella handle tightened. "F for 'fuck you', that is! ...and I mean like...'fuck you' fuck you, not like, FUCK you."

"Yes, of course," came the reply, with just a hint of smug satisfaction swaddling the edges. The satisfaction soon faded into disapproval, though. "I did have one criticism on your part, however. Your disinterest in discussing religious discourse quite disappointed me."

"Hey, don't you diss my disbelief!" she snapped back. "It's none of your damn business anyway."

"I'm afraid I've gone and MADE it my business though," Specter replied, adding a fourth sugar to the coffee. "Especially now that you've shown your hand...".

"...the fuck are you talking about?"

"Unpleasant as he was to deal with, I'm afraid our indisposed friend, Mr Fedora Chubsman, was right," they said, low and mysterious again as they stirred the coffee. "Please tell me you've put more thought into your beliefs than simple agnosticism. I don't even see HOW you can believe it when there is a...how did you put it? 'frog goddess'?....sitting right beside you."

"I thought the very same thing earlier!" Heqet jumped in, eager to be included. "I mean, it's pretty obvious to someone like ME that supernatural beings exist, but I can generally understand when others choose not to believe in that existence! On Jacqui's hand though, I am kind of sitting right here, so there really shouldn't be any NEED for agnosticism, should there?"

They both turned to face the accused expectantly, leaving her hanging on the edge of Heqet's words. Jacqui's eyes went wide, then narrow again. "...what? You two just gonna put me on the spot like that?"

"It's only a question," Specter offered with a shrug.

"Kind of an important one, too," Heqet corrected politely. "...well, important to ME, anyway."

"Yeah, well..." Jacqui replied, then hesitated. Something about the way Heqet's eyes gleamed even in the relaxed low-light of the cafe evoked a certain unknown, unexplored, and never before desired new hormone inside her internal feelings box. Despite having constantly reiterated to her insistent parents that nothing they could ever say could change her mind about not bearing children, in this moment, she felt an undeniable pang of maternal instinct, an emotion strong enough to momentarily restrain her from back-sassing and disappointing this precious miracle of a dream frog with her inevitable answer.

...well, 'momentarily' being the operative word.

"...Heqet, you're...you're just a dream," she finished, lamely.

"Aww, well thank you!" Heqet replied bashfully. "I won't pretend to understand conventional standards of human beauty, but I'm sure you're quite lovely yourself!"

"God dammit!" Jacqui shouted, slamming her hands on the table, umbrella and coffee and all. "Stop being so naive and innocent for two seconds!"

"Wait, you've been saying 'God damn it' this whole time, haven't you?" Heqet beamed. "You DO believe!"

"Ugh, Jesus, stop!"

"More proof!"

"NO!" she screamed, nearly flattening her cardboard cup with a fist as none of the bickering hordes all around her even bothered to look over. "I mean you're literally just a dream! You're a figment of my subconscious, here to hijack my rampant midnight period dream with some cutesy bullshit optimism before giving me the Spanish Inquisition over whether or not I believe in god or whatever! Fuck's sake, what are you, my mom?"

She stood up straight, puffing out her chest as she dredged up another burst of energy, just daring either of them to respond so she could spew it back out in zealous fury. Specter continued silently stirring their coffee, as if there was indeed still more waiting to be said on the matter and they wanted to be ready with a full cuppa before getting into any juicy details. Heqet's lips puckered and her eyes seemed to slide slowly across the room in contemplation. Her involuntary new frog habits prompted a quiet burp from her throat, but she didn't respond.

Jacqui slowly exhaled, but maintained her stone cold glare. "I didn't put myself in a Nyquil coma just to waste my whole dream thumpin' bibles with some faceless genderfuck in a snazzy suit. I did not bear the pain of shedding my innards through my ladyparts just so you could have a moment to talk to me about our lord and savior. Whom, I might add, I do not believe in...but also do not DISBELIEVE in."

She leaned on the edge of the booth, putting her face up close enough to Specter's that she could smell the coffee on their breath. "...and if I hear a single word about it otherwise, then your ass better be ready to throw the fuck down."

Returning to attention, hands on her hips, her face smushed into the smuggest smirk she'd ever smiled. Nobody, not even creepy faceless dream-shadow people, would dare go against her after she'd thrown down the gauntlet the way she had just now. Well, maybe Raf would, but nobody with an ounce of perception would. You simply do NOT challenge the scowling, meaty dwarf with a melee weapon in her hands while her lower body is in knife-wrenching turmoil, hormones supercharging her actions should she so decide to act on them.

But of course, with the relaxed panache of an evil villain always one step ahead of their nemesis, Specter leaned back and took a patient sip of coffee, preparing to deliver what looked like a counterpoint speech they'd probably been rehearsing in their head for days in advance to make absolutely certain it came off as condescending and brashly overconfident as it did just then:

"My dear Umbrella Warrior," they said, fingers folded and indexes steepled, "...whether or not you CHOOSE to believe in the existence of a 'higher power', you're already living proof of one."

"Is that right?" she scoffed. "And what's that, the 'sweet miracle of life'?"

"I was talking about those period cramps," Specter replied casually.

Jacqui squinted back. Heqet followed suit, eyes sparkling curiously. "...that does seem to be a convenient elephant in the room tonight."

Specter nodded, taking another sip. "I'll explain. As I said before, menstruation is a curse; a ritual of blood and daggers. At no fault of your own, you've been incurably hexed with a life of constant, recurring pain. Pain, I might add, that you don't deserve an ounce of."

She didn't respond, but didn't break her gaze.

"You've been given a body that damns you to a week of pain and misery every single month of its existence," they continued, staring blankly into the cup - again, so Jacqui assumed. "It's like making a monthly rent payment, except with a currency of blood, and you receive nothing in return. A sacrifice that yields no blessing. A toll that pays for no service. How can that be explained as anything other than a supernatural curse?"

Pinching the bridge of her nose, Jacqui exhaled slowly, then levelled her head with Specter's. "Look, I get it, you're good with poetry, but are you ever gonna explain where the hell you're going with any of this?"

"You don't agree that menstruation is an involuntary affliction from on high?"

"I don't DISAGREE," she replied, feeling her jaw tighten as the knife twisted once more. "I just wanna know what your point is."

"That IS my point," they said with infuriating patience. "Can you explain such pain any better?"

"I don't fucking know!" she shouted, throwing her hands in the air. "Maybe mother nature fucked up somewhere along the line and some stupid mutation went viral and we all just evolved bleeding uteruses! Who fucking cares?!"

"Evolution?" they asked, feigning shock. "Evolution has always been a process of filling a specific need or developing a powerful advantage. Why would the human body evolve a painful reproductive curse that offers no physical advantages whatsoever?"

Before Jacqui could fire back, Heqet finally piped up. "Oh! A reproductive curse, of course! Like maybe a divine punishment placed by a god or goddess on any woman who failed to bear a child in their name?"

"...sure," Specter agreed, though not before pausing to glare strangely at the frog. "...after all, why should women feel guilty about not getting pregnant every month they are able to?"

"Finally, SOMETHING we can agree on," Jacqui muttered back, before Heqet could reply.

"There is simply no sound, scientific, or sensible reasoning for a woman's body to function this way," Specter concluded with flick of the wrist. "And so, if not science, and not evolution, then what - no, I should say WHO - could be responsible for this completely illogical behavior? To use your own agnostic leanings against you, you can't DISPROVE that menstruation is a curse from the supernatural, can you?"

An unspecified number of seconds ticked by tensely as all parties not engaged in droning background chatter now remained absolutely speechless, allowing the words to settle in their respective brains. The river of sarcastic quips that normally flowed from behind Jacqui's mouth seemed to be all dammed up now, and Heqet seemed to be struggling with some mental calculation that no amount of glitter-eyed sunshine could completely hide. Truth or not, Specter made one hell of an argument.

...but why? Jacqui had to wonder. Why is everyone in this dream so goddamn fixated on my bleeding cooch? Is all of this just my subconscious getting all Freudian with me? Am I being Freuded? Am I trying to tell myself something? Or am I just seriously pissed about shark week?

...wait a minute.

All the words she'd absorbed today became a concentrated breath of air, blowing the dust from the light bulb above her brain that otherwise might have shone brightly enough for her to have thought of it herself. Of course...of fucking COURSE!

"What's got your buttercups and rainbows all tickled over there?" Heqet asked, rebounding instantly into the usual joviality as Jacqui tried to reign in the laughter she didn't even realize she'd broken out into.

"Nothin', nothin', I just...I think I get it now," she explained, steadying herself against the table as the ambient noise around them drowned out any leftover chuckles.

Heqet waited patiently to hear the explanation, as if ignoring and forgiving Jacqui's previous outburst altogether.

"See, this is all a dream, right?" Jacqui explained, gesturing to the room at large. "Back in the real world, my 'physical body' is all fucked up on sleep syrup, which I took 'cause I was sick of dealing with period cramps, right? So, because I had all that on the brain before I joined the choir unconscious, my mind rigged up this dream world in which a frog takes me on a quest to slay the god who cursed my guts with period pain and holy shit that sounds like the most insane fucking drivel this mouth's ever spit out."

"So..." Heqet's lips flattened out and spread wide across her face as her eyes shone like headlights, "...does that mean you've finally deciphered your personal quest that I'm ordained to assist you with?"

"Yup," Jacqui nodded, shouldering the umbrella and striking a stoic pose as the beams from Heqet's eyes flared over her glasses in a menacing, cartoony manner. "You and I are gonna go on a little journey to find God, so we can bust his balls with this umbrella!"

She held the pose for a few seconds, waiting to see whether her audience would applaud the auspicious leap in dream logic she'd just made or just point and laugh at her. With enough swagger and self-satisfaction to rival the devil himself, Specter simply grinned and replied, "...I can't help but admire the way you make your topmost priority violence."

"Hey, don't you jerk my chain," she snipped back, leaning once again on the table. "It's just a dream, it's not like any actual people will be harmed in the making of this film. Besides, I'm a very physical kind of person. Y'know, high-fives, hugs, slappin' butts, kickin' shins and bustin' kneecaps...made more friends through sparring practice than I ever did through Psych class."

"Don't worry, you've got nothing to rationalize to me!" Heqet chimed in. "Broken kneecaps seem much safer and easier to clean up after than the old classics, like mortal gladiatorial combat or blood sacrifice! And as long as I fulfill the spiritual quota I've been tasked with, then I'm good for pretty much whatever it takes!"

"That's the spirit!"

"Indeed..." Specter said, somewhat reservedly, as they gave the frog another distasteful side-eye scowl. "Well...perhaps now would be a good time to get started, then."

Jacqui paused, then tilted her head to one side. "...yeah, about that. Where exactly DO we start?"

"I have an--"

"Where else WOULD you start," Specter interrupted, with more relish than any hot dog of a sentence should rightly be able to hold, "...than the beginning?"

An asynchronous blink crossed Jacqui's face. "...which would be...where, exactly...?"

"I know where--"

"Think about it," they cut in again, a black-gloved finger pressed firmly against Heqet's mouth. "Do you even know where god lives?"

"It's a dream, I'm sure we'll get there...eh, eventually...somehow…?" she replied with a shrug.

"How will you know when you've found him?" Specter pressed, pressing also against the frog who really wanted a turn to speak now. "Do you even know what god looks like?"

She frowned. "I don't even know what YOU look like. I told you, this is a dream. Since when do dreams have to follow any coherent rules like that? I'm sure I'll just sorta...know...".

The sly smile returned. "You seem a bit unsure on that point...you don't know where he is, or what he looks like...do you even know his name?"

"Uhh...it isn't just…'God'...?"

Specter tsked, shaking their head slowly. "Sounds to me like you've still got a few things to learn before this 'quest' of yours can really begin...I'd suggest amassing at least a few simple facts about god before you leave here."

Jacqui narrowed her eyes back. "...and YOU can't tell me these things because...?"

"Because I'm not a textbook," came the reply, as smooth as it was sharp. "And the real answer is the journey it takes to ask the question in the first place."

"Don't you fucking riddle me this," she shot back, pointing the tip of the umbrella squarely - well, okay, more like roughly - where she thought the nose should be. "I told you, if you're gonna fuck around with me, then you'd better be ready to throw down."

Specter sighed and casually brushed the umbrella aside to take another sip of coffee. "I know I said before that I admired your proclivity for violence, but really, there ARE other methods for getting what you want."

"You just said you weren't gonna tell me anything."

Sip. "Well, there sure are a lot of other folks discussing religion here tonight, aren't there?"

Jacqui took a look around the café, scowl increasing with each degree she turned. "...no way in HELL am I burning up all my dreamtime talking to a bunch of self-righteous dickheads about philosophy."

"Talk is cheap," Specter answered with a shrug.

"Yeah, but time is money," she replied, arms crossed. "C'mon Heqet, let's blow this lame-ass house of...Heqet?"

Jacqui looked down to see a pair of blue legs flailing helplessly beneath a black-gloved hand that appeared to be smashing the frog into the wooden framework. "What the FUCK?! Get off her!"

With a fierce quickness, she thrust the pointed end of the umbrella down into Specter's wrist, wrenching and twisting it for maximum effect. Their fingers quickly released Heqet's body, the entire hand shuddering and convulsing in horrible ways as Specter withdrew it back to their body. And yet, they did not make a sound in doing so...

"Are you okay?" Jacqui asked her companion, aiming the umbrella again at Specter's face as she did.

"I'm alright!" Heqet coughed, optimism still undeterred. "Thanks for the rescue, my brave hero!"

Instead of answering, she flicked her attention back to the shadowy instigator, who had now pulled out a sleek, shiny phone and was busily thumbing through something on the screen. "Good idea, now might be a good time to text out your last will and testament before I straight-up impale you."

"Hmm? Oh, sorry, I was actually browsing for an appropriate soundtrack to underscore the moment," Specter answered without looking up. "Got a favorite song you'd always wanted to start a fight scene to?"

"Ballroom Blitz," she said automatically before realizing, wait, no, I can do better than that...is it too late to call take-backs?

"Interesting choice," Specter replied, still strangely unfazed by the umbrella. "Certainly not what I would have gone with when I'm about to exchange centuries' worth of hard-built opinions with a hundred strangers I'll probably never meet again, and who probably all hate MY opinion...".

It took a moment of corked-eyebrow confusion for the words to straighten out in her mind, and when they did, they still didn't make sense. She opened her mouth to ask a follow up, but Specter very abruptly slammed the phone down on the table, then scrambled to stand up beside it, and addressed the room at large in a voice louder than it should have been:

"Attention, my dear philosophers! This fire-hearted firebrand standing before me would like to argue that Jediism should be discredited as a legitimate religion!"

All at once the entire room went dead silent, and in the empty aftershock of their words, every face as one entity turned toward Jacqui with the grim menace of a hundred disapproving sneers. In that moment, her still-vengeful guts clenched tightly as she felt the very same alarm and fear as the person who'd just let out a huge fart right when the speakers got unplugged...that is, until one particularly audacious college philosopher stepped forward, threw the baby blue hood back over his shoulders, puffed out the dashing rainbow children's cartoon character emblazoned on his chest, and furiously yapped, "How DARE you insult the teachings of Master Obi-Wan!"

Jacqui glared back, just daring him to try it...but as she moved from each frowning in the crowd to the next, realizing they were all just as ready to throw down as she was, she felt that bravado slip slowly away. She whipped her head back to confront her mysterious conspirator and now sworn enemy, but they were nowhere to be found.

"Where did Specter--".

"Are you ready Steve?" came the voice over the phone speaker, clear as crystal.

She turned back to the advancing horde.

"...ah, shit."