Period Piece

You are the Warrior.

And the scent is strong now.

It hangs on the breeze and ignites your body. To breathe the scent is to breathe pure energy. The energy of hope. You know your prey is elusive, and your time is short. And if you miss this mark, your prey will become your hunter.

But the moon hovers high, and the wind reveals his secrets. For once, the stars may be in your alignment, your conspirators in success. That hope, the chance you might yet live on if you succeed. Nothing but the scent can fill your lungs with such passion.

The wound is pounding. Your blood is on fire. Fear and worry have departed, to be replaced only by determination.

Hide, beast.

And pray you will live long enough to see the sunrise.

But it was wrong.

For one thing, it was far more grandiose than any train station Jacqui's pitiful little town had the right to pay for. Wood cabin style coffee houses were one thing, but a train station with marble pillars and velvet carpets with gold trim? Seriously, who builds a train station fit for royalty way out in the middle of a rinky-dinky suburban town?

And why had Jacqui never borne witness to its horrible majesty before?

"...eh, dreams are just weird like that," she rationalized with a shrug, almost forgetting that her shoulder was currently in use by Heqet, now scrambling to keep her place.

"Well, you may not recognize it, but it's got to be the right place!" Heqet assured her, raising her back for Jacqui to confirm the status of the Directional Arrow. "When it comes to objective-based magical arrows printed on frog butts, this booty doesn't lie!"

Jacqui continued gazing up at the palace doubtfully. "I mean...I don't wanna jinx it, I saw with my own eyes that the Arrow straightened out after I solved the stupid riddle, but...I just wanna be absolutely sure we're headed where I think we're headed."

"I don't make the rules, Jacqui. I just help you follow them!"

"Hmph."

Without much of a choice but to trust the Arrow, Jacqui strode on up to the front entrance, still trapped in the gaudy wonder of the building's architecture. The walls were built of polished mocha marble with undertones of charcoal splattered about haphazardly, and the rims accenting them were probably made of brass, but freshened up to look like expensive gold, carved in images of eagles and ships and other vaguely medieval symbols. Two spiky gargoyles formed of gritty granite and wearing bondage-esque leather dog collars stood watch on either side of the gleaming glass revolving door.

And now, just pulling in on the tracks behind the station, came an old-fashioned steam engine train, made of sparkling copper or bronze, like the whole thing had just come out of the world's biggest carwash. The engine car was a monstrous steel barrel of belching fumes, covered in a cacophony of pipes and crossbars, complete with all the whistles and bells. Literally, steam-spewing whistles and tiny ringing bells dotted their way across the tops of the cars.

Jacqui swore the whole spectacle looked like it had come straight out of a recolored 1920s movie, and wondered if a silently screaming damsel was tied to the tracks somewhere up ahead, waiting to be rescued by her, the stoic protagonist, from some mustache-twirling asshole in a sleek black suit.

I MUST be dreaming if I think my shabby-ass town could afford a hideous monstrosity like this...

"Alright, I think we've filled our quota for gawking today," she said, resolutely. "Let's get this plot back on track."

Heh.

"Concurred!" Heqet concurred, also resolutely. "I'm going to recommend strongly that you take the lead for this part of the quest, though! Human customs aren't exactly my strong point! You'll have an easier time navigating whatever tribulations lie ahead than I would!"

"Very true," she nodded, eyeing the gargoyle outside the door over her shoulder. She had half-expected it to give a chase if she turned away. "So here's how it's gonna go down. Per normal human discourse, we're gonna walk up to a desk, ask another human for a slip of paper saying we have permission to ride a train to Everywhere, pay 'em with...ah, shit, I didn't bring my wallet."

"Don't you worry about that, Jacqui!" Heqet replied with a big grin. "The Arrow is clearly pointing straight ahead, meaning there should be no need to backtrack for any reason!"

"Not even for cash?" she countered, doubtfully. "What, they're just gonna let me ride the train for free cause I'm on a mission from God?"

"The Great Will of The Macrocosmic Universe will provide!" Heqet winked back. "Let's continue to act as if we're above the law of social customs!"

Jacqui relaxed into a half-smile. "...I like the cut of yer jib."

"I'm not entirely sure what that means, but I'm acting like I'm above the law of human social customs anyway!"

There weren't many people inside the station, a welcome relief from the bombast of the café earlier. Here there were just a handful of hodgepodge travelers, some lugging wheeled suitcases across the polished ceramic floors, some arguing with smartly uniformed conductors, and at least one patron dozing blissfully in drunken slumber along the swanky leather seats beside the vending machine with a newspaper placed delicately over his face.

Mounted just above the ornate, gold-trimmed service booth along the far wall was a large and decidedly archaic LED readerboard straight out of the 1980s. The city names and departure times and train numbers listed on it that might have held secret, esoteric meanings if Jacqui hadn't recognized them as elementary school calculator jokes.

At least "Route #8008135" got a chuckle out of her.

"I don't see a train for 'Everywhere' up on the board," she said with a certain touch of dismay. "Must be like ordering from the secret menu or something. Let's ask the dude behind the counter."

"Ooh, a chance to observe human customs and improve my conversational skills!" Heqet replied with a smile. "Show me what you've got!"

"Hey, mister train dude!" Jacqui called, waving at the pencil-necked, pointy-nosed man behind the wooden counter. "Me and my frog buddy here need two tickets to board."

The man, bound in an impressive but exceedingly uncreative black suit with silver trim, blinked and sized her up and down, very disapprovingly. The look in his eyes, coupled with his tiny glasses resting on his pointy nose beneath his yarny black hair gave him a very birdlike appearance. Jacqui decided his name ought to be Edgar or Allan.

"...I see, yes," he answered in exactly the voice she'd expected. "And where might you two delinquents be headed?"

Jacqui flashed him a knowing grin. "...two tickets to Everywhere."

Edgar's eyes expanded, pupils contracted, and Jacqui's sub-subconscious provided the 'camera flash recharge' sound effect for accompaniment. "...h-how did YOU know about the secret menu? Who told you about that?!"

"Whoa, relax man," she replied, coolly. "Let's just say I've been around the block once or twice before."

...that was technically true, but contextually pants-on-fire.

"I...wh...w-well, then," he stuttered, pulling himself together and running slender fingers like a comb through the thin scraggle atop his head. "So you can talk the talk, but can you walk the walk?"

Nothing but an asynchronous blink answered him back.

"Money. Money walks," he explained, walking his fingers along his palm to explain.

"Money TALKS," Jacqui corrected him. "BULLSHIT walks."

"Bullshit."

"Exactly."

"No, I--okay, fine, you don't understand sophisticate humor, I get it...look, what I'm asking is, do you plan on PAYING for these alleged tickets to 'Everywhere' or not?" Edgar explained, tapping the counter expectantly with his precision-trimmed fingernail.

Jacqui exchanged glances with a thoroughly bemused Heqet. "...uh, no...not really, no. I was kinda just gonna get on the train, since, y'know...this is MY dream and all. Just point me to the right train and I'll be out of your bird-nest hair in a hot minute."

"Dream...?" His eyebrows raised sharply enough to form the image of a square root sign. "You can't just buy a ticket with Dreams!"

"What about with Hopes, then?" Heqet offered politely, only to be shushed by Jacqui.

"If dreams were dollars, then androids would ride around on electric sheep!" he scoffed, too full of his own metaphor to notice how much nonsense he was making. "Around here, goods and services can only be traded for paper and metal! You know? That which we refer to as 'dollars'!"

"Well what the fuck kind of dream is this, then?" Jacqui griped, tossing her hands in the air. "Who the fuck dreams in such vivid reality that they still have to PAY for 'goods and services' that aren't even real?"

Upon hearing the spicy four-letter word, Edgar drew in a sharp breath and puffed himself up until he all but blew the stitches right out of his sleeves. Steam erupted from his ears and his tongue began sputtering angry half-words. He leapt up atop his counter, leaning menacingly over the blasphemous infidels.

"How DARE you speak to me like that in my own court?" he demanded, his jagged teeth grinding together like saw blades. "How DARE you deny the sanctified Everywhere Train its meager pittance, your inaugural tithe to the World Celestial, and then have the putrid, bilious gall to drag its holy name through such defecation and filth!"

"Alright, geez, calm down there, Harlan Ellison," said Jacqui, taking a step back. "I get it, you don't like it when punk kids like me use bad words."

"It sounds like he also doesn't like people who don't pay into his service," Heqet added. "Maybe he's the owner of this establishment?"

"I," he continued, crossing his arms as he stood up, tall and imposing, "...am the Gatekeeper. My job is to Keep the Gate so that only those deemed worthy may enter. And keep it I shall."

Jacqui eyed him suspiciously. "...uh huh, deemed worthy by whom?"

"Me. Myself. And sometimes I."

"Pfft, figures," she said with a huff. "Alright, indulge me. WHY am I not worthy to ride your stupid-ass train?"

"Because you have not EARNED your privilege to ride my Everywhere Train!" Edgar replied, damning her at fingerpoint. "I will not abide such impiety and disrespect as you and your filthy swamp beast have wrought unto my domain! Such brazen profanity...my trains are sacred! They demand reverence and donation! Unbelievers shall not be tolerated!"

"Whoa, whoa, hang on, back up a sec," Jacqui interjected, backpedaling with her fingers. "'Unbelievers'? 'Sacred'? Don't tell me this is gonna be another throwdown about religion...".

"Weeeeell," Heqet butted in once again, eager to be included and useful, "...we ARE talking about a train equipped to take us to a mysterious pocket dimension called Everywhere, where we hope to find an omnipresent God, so...religion definitely seems to be on the menu! In fact, our whole quest pretty much smacks of religion from top to bottom!"

"HEY!" Edgar shouted from his countertop. "I'm still relevant, you know!"

"Yeah, I DO know," came the response, unimpressed and probably fueled by a clutch of abdominal pain. "What do you want, a medal for eavesdropping?"

"Please, you're shouting every other word," Edgar replied as he glared back at her, his eyes slowly burning themselves into an unhealthy shade of coal black. "But I've heard enough...".

"You say you're on a mission to find God..." he crooned mockingly, tilting his head at an owlish angle that might have been funny if he wasn't being so condescending about it. "...but no true seeker would leave such rancid, irreverent scum dripping from her mouth in the presence of the Divine."

Jacqui raised an eyebrow. "...you've gotta be shitting me?"

"There, you see!" His finger hovered close enough to her nose that she could reach out and bite it if she dared. "Your infantile façade wears thin! I can see the false pretenses you and your toad cower beneath! You have no true desire to meet with the holy God...you wish only to infect his shrines with your filthy sacrilege and deface his sanctuaries with your bloody excrements!"

Taking a moment to give him a blank, studious stare, Jacqui put a closed fist against her forehead and sighed. "...alright, you know what, we've wasted enough time here. C'mon Heqet, let's just find it ourselves."

As she turned to saunter away, she heard a loud flapping sound behind her, followed immediately by Edgar landing in her path, an inexplicable scatter of black feathers at his feet. His eyes were charred with fury.

"You're not leaving," he hissed, teeth gleaming in the light of the fancy chandelier above, "...until you prove to me you can respect my Trains!"

"What the fuck do you want from me?" Jacqui shot back, fingers tightening around the hilt of her umbrella.

"You will pay whatever price I decree your ticket to be, and prove to me you are worthy of my Trains!" The more he spoke, the scratchier and more avian his voice became. If he used the word "nevermore" even once, Jacqui was ready to run the umbrella right through his stomach.

"So all I have to do is fit your definition of 'worthy', then?" she challenged, pushing her face up into his. "I got a magic spirit frog blessed by the Great Will of the Macrocosmic Universe herself helpin' me in my quest to find God...and you need MORE than THAT?"

"The best the Universe can send you is a tiny, insignificant frog?" he sneered back. "Don't make me laugh. What could a slimy, repulsive amphibian like that know about my God? How can two such rotten souls as yourselves even PRETEND to be on a quest to meet Him when you can't even pass my simple test of worth?"

"Alright, listen," Jacqui said with the frustrated sigh of a bleeding dwarf with a shiny, bejeweled axe to grind. "We don't have TIME for any more bullshit tonight, we're racing against my own body clock. So fuck it, I'll just step out, grab a wallet--er, MY wallet, not just some wallet I happened to find in someone else's pocket, I mean...y'know, and--".

"I don't even WANT your foul money now!" Edgar cawed, waving his fists around in asynchronous orbits. "With every passing second you contaminate my glorious temple inch by inch! You couldn't AFFORD to bribe your way out of the decadence you've left me to fester in! RESPECT! Respect is what I demand of you now! And I wager you can't even pay your dues in THAT either!"

"Look, do you want my fuckin' money or not?!" she shouted back, childlike rage building beneath her skin.

"Your money is worthless to me without due respect!" he shrieked, tongue about to fly out of his mouth in fury. "If you're really as big a fan of God as you claim to be, then prove it! Name three books of the Bible!"

"What the fuck does that have to do with--"

"RECITE EVEN ONE BIBLE VERSE FOR ME!"

"Alright, if that's the game you wanna play, then how about this one!" she roared back. "Book of Jacqui, chapter 1! In the Beginning, God created everything in the universe, but by the time he got around to women, he ran outta skill points and was too fucking lazy to fix it, so he left them with defective-ass bodies that bleed and cramp every month like a fucking asshole!"

Edgar's face was beyond livid. He'd long surpassed the point of biting his lip and hopping in place and bulging his forehead veins. Now his mouth was puckered like he'd just inserted a whole lemon, and his lips were had become a black hole, dragging his eyebrows and nose and chin in toward them as they prepared to re-open once more and explode into a new universe of rage and anger.

"Verse two!" Jacqui continued, ignoring his ever-shortening fuse. "When Jacqui found out about all this dickery, she marched on over to God's house like she owned the place, ripped the door off its hinges and drop-kicked him straight in the--"

"You've perverted the source material..." Edgar growled through grindstone teeth.

"Oooh!" Heqet hummed to life from her shoulder post. "I think he's onto you, Jacqui!"

"You've disrespected the canon!" he snarled, much louder.

Jacqui pushed her glasses back into place and readied her stance. "Yeah? And whatcha gonna do about it?"

Edgar's eyes frosted over with a stark wilderness, as though he'd entered an altered state of psionic consciousness. "I'm prepared to die for my beliefs...".

A horrible grin crossed his face. "...let's hope you are as well."

From behind his back he whipped out a small black handle, and from the handle flicked out a short blade, and from the blade dripped a single drop of bright red blood.

Not to be outdone, Jacqui raised her umbrella, twirling it between her fingers before tossing it into the air and catching it with her other hand.

"You don't frighten me, you pathetic little worm," he cackled in a low, unholy octave. "You may think it's as easy as foxtrotting into my tabernacle and sullying my God with your sacrilegious words, but such pitiful insects as you can never alter what's already been made truth."

"You keep saying that like I give a fuck," she spit back, biting her lip as she felt the beast within clawing at her innards. "All I'm really here for is to find God, so I can kick him in the sack. And you act like me doing that is gonna destroy everything you believe in. But if I'm just a 'pitiful insect' who can't change anything, then what the fuck does it matter? Why's it worth trying to kill me if what I do doesn't affect you at all?"

Edgar began walking a circle as his monologue slipped out in seething syllables. "It's the principle of it all! Even if you fail, when you rewrite the truth with your own insidious, poisonous tripe, people take notice. They talk. They begin to wonder just what you were trying to accomplish by defying the canon. Some may even try to follow in your footsteps, the blind leading the blind. YOU might not be able to change the canon...but if enough brothers and sisters strayed from the flock...".

"Ahem!" Heqet croaked, raising a hand. "I would just like to take a moment to politely interject right here that I made this very same observation in a previous battle with an unrelated party!"

Jacqui shot her a warning glance, thought about it a moment, then conceded. "You know, you're right. You did say something like that earlier."

"...as I was explaining," Edgar continued, glaring viciously at the interjecting frog, "...if everyone abandoned our CURRENT canon - the very canon I've pledged my entire being to! - then I'd spend the rest of my waking moments in perpetual hell, knowing that it was YOU who led them all astray! YOU who rendered everything I live for meaningless! How will I live with the guilt and lament, if I don't kill you while I have the chance?"

He paused a few seconds to take a deep breath as the words settled. Jacqui made a face back at him, having expected more.

"...that's...that's it?" she asked, opening a palm to him. "You're worried that me kickin' God in the balls might inspire other people to do it too? And that if others believe differently than you do, then the whole thing's ruined forever? That's really all you're whining about?"

Edgar sniffed, somehow contemptuously.

Jacqui shook her head in disbelief. "Dude...that's like gettin' mad when Hollywood makes a shitty reboot of some movie from your childhood."

"BUT IT'S SACRED!!!" he screamed, stamping his foot.

"It's bullshit and you know it," she replied sourly, almost letting her guard down before remembering the knife in his hand. "I'm doing this for ME, I don't give a flying shitsicle about your 'canon'. I'm gonna go play kickball with God, whether you like it or not, for my own spiritual fulfillment or whatever - and for my own entertainment, not gonna lie."

Edgar licked his lips, words making broken efforts to appear as his mouth opened and closed repeatedly.

"Look, I don't care what you do with your life," she continued, patience running on empty, "...and you don't have to care what I do with mine. So why don't you just ignore me and get back to worshiping the modern steam engine, or whatever it is you do when you're not threatening women with switchblades."

"I refuse to back down to the likes of you," he hissed, black eyes smoldering like cinders. "I'm the Gatekeeper!"

She exhaled slowly, eyes locked on his. "...then I guess we're throwin' the fuck down, aren't we?"

"You'll regret making those your final words," he sneered.

"Suck my clit, asshole."

And as his arm drew back, and her guts twisted up inside her, so too did time itself seem to twist and slow down as Jacqui quickly gauged her opponent's movements so she could plot her own.

Half-step to the right, her brain instructed. Then body check with the left shoulder into a left spin, grab his wrist, then right knee into his stomach, security guard from the left, kick him in the--

...wait, what...?

Time abruptly hastened back to normal speed and Jacqui managed to half-step to the right just in time to avoid the knife's plunge as a massive security officer clad in tight navy blue approached from the side, catching Edgar in her massive arms as she shouted for him to stop.

Still hissing through his teeth, foul gases erupting from his nostrils with every breath, Edgar squirmed helplessly in her grasp. "Let! GO! You will all suffer for this insolence!"

"'scuse me miss," the officer addressed Jacqui in a voice like rich leather as she lowered her shimmering aviator sunglasses in the coolest way possible. "This a-hole botherin' you?"

Pretending she hadn't gotten lost running her eye down the officer's powerful curves, Jacqui snapped to attention and nodded, gesturing to the blade in Edgar's hand. "Yes he is. Quite a lot, actually."

"Now where'd this come from, Allan?" the officer demanded, wrenching it from his grasp as she towered over him. Jacqui hadn't quite realized just how frail his bird-like body really was until contrasted against this new Amazonian queen of the concrete jungle. "I told you to stop doin' this kinda shit, but now you've gone and taken it a step TOO FAR."

"He's done this before?" Jacqui asked, absolutely not distracted by the perfect, flowing waves of the officer's wheat-colored hair.

The officer hoisted Allan - eh, she was close enough - up by the collar of his suit in such a way that his feet nearly left the ground. "Yup. Been masqueradin' as a Station Attendant for weeks now, tryin' to get passengers to believe in his weird-ass Train religion. Ain't that right, bird-brain?"

"And I'd have gotten away with it too!" he squawked, trying unsuccessfully to extricate himself from his neatly-buttoned suit, "...if it weren't for you philistine infidels and your talking frog!"

"Yikes," Jacqui replied, checking to make sure the talking frog was still firmly secured on her shoulder. "Sounds like someone needs to get a life."

"Right?" the guard nodded, with a smile bright enough to ignite Jacqui's heart. "Glad to see SOMEONE around here talkin' some damn sense."

"You know, it's vermin like YOU who cast society into such cancerous ruin!" Allan shouted, still struggling. "You parasites think you can just muscle your way into my sanctums, eradicate my way of life, then have the audacity to think ME the crazy one?! ME, who sacrifices my every fiber into daily devotion unto my holiest of holies! ME, who surrenders only my utmost for His highest! ME, the sacred Keeper of Gates for the Great and Exalted--FSZKDJSLHFSHHH!!"

His body slumped to the floor in sporadic convulsions, speech slowly devolving into slackjawed, vowel-less drivel. Jacqui looked up to see the officer raise her handheld taser up to her lips and blow before returning it to its hip holster with a finger-flip and officially rocketing to the top of Jacqui's mental "To-Do List".

"...nice," was all she found herself able to enunciate.

The guard seemed to pick up on it though, and gave her a sly smile. "So, where you headed?"

Jacqui glanced over at Heqet, who gave her a sparkle-eyed nod, then smiled back at the officer. "I need the midnight train going Everywhere, if you please."

"Heh," she chuckled, reaching into a small fanny pack on her other hip. "Off to see God, are ya?"

"Damn right I am. I got beef to roast with that guy."

"Alright then," the officer shrugged, rolling her eyes as she passed Jacqui a crisp, stamped ticket. "It's your funeral."

A momentary thought bubble with a question mark inside appeared above Heqet's tiny head, but she quickly shook it away.

"It's on the house tonight," the officer continued, slinging Allan's twitching body over her shoulder. "Y'know, for puttin' up with this sack of garbage."

"...huh? Oh, yeah, him," Jacqui replied, very much paying attention and not at all tracing the contours of the tight blue uniform with her eyes. "I really appreciate that, thanks!"

The officer nodded. "Take care of yourself, beautiful."

Afraid she'd make a stuttering dork of herself, Jacqui quickly picked a response from a short list of available options, opting for the snap, double pistols and a wink. She felt compelled to follow up with a high five and a butt slap as they passed by one another, but didn't want to ruin the moment. She at least made sure to watch her go, basking in the sweet afterglow left in her wake.

And as they boarded the train, Heqet's face slowly emerged into view from the side, a huge, glowing smile pasted from one end to the other.

"What are YOU smiling about?"

"Just so you know," the frog said, placing a tiny hand on Jacqui's cheek, "...I took extra effort to avoid jumping into the conversation - even though I knew I could add valuable insight to it! - specifically so as not to interrupt the amazing chemistry of that potential mating ritual you two were just engaged in!"

"...shut up," came the reply that concealed a guilty grin.