SONGS OF OURSELVES

❦ predator

somewhere in between the crazy and the conscious

she's naked underneath them shadows

let the sunlight undress her slow

i don't know who i am

i'm so good at doing impressions though

❧ mac miller, "the festival"

"I think he's dead," a voice murmured from the deep. "Poor bastard ain't breathing. He ain't even twitched."

"Look at his tattoos! And his ears! After a fall like that, ain't no way he's one of us."

"This isn't Loveschild, is it? He looks just like him. I swear this is Loveschild."

"Pssssh, c'mon. This ain't Loveschild. Important gods don't just explode into the realm buck-ass naked. No one comes to Tejumi unless they're lost or running from the law."

"Then what's he doing here?"

A feminine exhale brushed his cheek. "Too bad he's not strapped. It would've been nice to loot at least a shirt for all our troubles."

"Cebo, grab that stick over there. I wanna poke his eye just to make sure he's dead."

"What are we? Barbarians?" A voice (Cebo?) asked. "Just kick him in the groin."

Sensing a threat to his most prized possession, Xosa's upper half snapped upright and the small crowd screamed.

"He's alive! He's alive, he's alive!" The young man closest to Xosa scrambled back like a crab. "I wasn't gonna knee you in the dick, I swear!"

"Haah!" The god staggered to his feet, snapping sunflowers stems like twigs, and barked with laughter. He towered over the diminutive peasants without even trying. His copper skin gleamed in the evening sun, eerily smooth for someone who just punched through eight layers of dense atmosphere. "Not my most graceful touchdown, but I've still got it!"

Xosa pointed at a terrified peasant and flashed his brilliant, toothy smile.

"You! Tiny mortal! What kingdom is this?"

The crowd gaped in bewilderment, still as the vibrant crop surrounding them.

Feeling silly, Xosa realized he defaulted to the guttural language of the gods (more vibration than actual tone) before switching to a softer dialect.

Only apex predators master the mother tongue of prey, his brother used to say. And how wise.

"Forgive me," Xosa tried again, tempering his baritone. "I didn't mean to startle you."

"Startle?" The peasant named Cebo squeaked. "I wasn't startled! You don't scare me, I don't care how tall you are!"

"...Of course not. In any case, would you mind telling me where I am? I seem to have... misplaced myself."