Snippet #2647190

“Welcome to Meg-“

“-and May’s House of Wonders"

An old wooden house nearly materializes out of thing air. It stands tall at two stories and it bordered by a rickety looking cast iron fence. The sun feels so hot on the back of your neck it feels as if thousands of white hot needles are pressing against your pores and you are tempted to believe that this, as have been the last four watering holes, is merely a mirage manifested by your mind in a desperate attempt to gain shelter from the unrelenting sun.

As you approach the building does not disappear and you feel your heart rate pick up, finally, shelter. Your legs feel as if fifty-pound weights had been strapped to the ankles, but you manage force yourself forward, willing momentum to throw your steps into a run. “Oh my, look-“

”-what we have here.” Two women that look older than time itself stand on the steps leading up to the inside of the strange house. The sand displaces as you force your feet down and you nearly collapse with each step. Each breath scraps against your lungs like fire, sand particles cut against the flesh of your lungs and you can’t help but wonder if you could possibly drown in your own blood. The old women are smiling at you, arms extend in welcome and you can’t keep the smile off your face. You had accepted death in the middle of this desert, your tongue is so swollen in your mouth you can’t even speak, you’ve sweat so much there is no more liquid to be expelled from your body. Your eyes crinkle and your lungs wheeze out grateful for the women. If you were hydrated there would have been tears in your eyes. “Come in-“

“-my darling.” They say with smiles that never fade. They seem to be so old their wrinkles have folded over themselves and their skin looks as if it were crafted from worn leather. You can’t be bothered to care about their odd behavior though, not when you are so desperate for anything but the sun. You are close enough to touch them now, and you reach towards them, your hands caked with a thick layer of dust and grim, it hurts to stretch the skin of your hands as you splay your palms open. You are so, so grateful for this place. “Oh dear, it seems-“

“We’ve made a mistake. This human-“

“-is not a rider.” One of the woman’s voices changes from the soft, fragile nature of the elderly, to a menacing baritone. You don’t have the energy or reflexes to stop your hands from interlocking with the two women’s. The moment you make contact they take you in a vice grip. The bones of your hands snap without any resistance and if you could have screamed you would have. Their grins widen menacingly and their crinkled old eyes black out. You are in too much pain to resist whatever monster trap you have stumbled into. All you can do is watch as the two old women begin to mesh together in a series cracks and squelches of adjusting bones and fusing flesh. The monster that holds you in its death grip is nothing you’ve ever seen in the books, but it is by far the most terrifying. It is possibly even scarier than the legendary Huitzilopotchli. The creature holding you cackles. “You hear that May? It thinks-“

“-we’re scarier than Huitzilopochtli!” The beast erupts into a fit of laughter again before sobering quickly.

“We’ll kill you quickly now.”
“We’ll kill you quickly now.”

---

Clink. Clink. Clink.

The methodical ringing of golden bracelets around a young man’s ankles was the only sound to keep him company as he trekked through the desert. The clink that echoed with each step was proof he was moving forward. A trick he had learned because sometimes you needed something to ground you when all your surroundings looked exactly the same. It seemed especially hot today though, the white cloth scarf draped over his head was doing little to ease the burn of the sun. The blonde man reached towards his side, feeling the camel-skin water pouch was also a comfort as its contents sloshed up against his side with each step the man took forward.

A screech rang out above him, it sounded the way heat made the air quiver and he wondered if it was hot enough to alter sound waves. A bright flurry of flames passed over his vision and Amir sighed as his beast, Hassan, perched itself on his shoulder. It was a bird made of fire, yet its flames did not catch his clothing or skin, they only aided in making him hotter than he already was. The blonde man could feel the sweat drops dripping down his cheeks and with some annoyance he shoved at the bird’s body. Hassan let out a startled squawk as it lost its balance, and he heard the frantic rustle of feathers as it tried to regain itself.

“That was quite rude Amir, you know I have no control of my body temperature.” It whispered to him, reclaiming the perch of his shoulder. The man sighed, reaching up to stroke the fiery feathers, they were extremely warm, but they did not burn him. He didn’t quite understand how the phoenix worked, but Hassan had assured him that the bird’s fire would never burn him.

“Fuck you, let me be miserable. Are we almost there?” He could feel Hassan’s annoyance with him even with no physical cues from the bird, the prolonged silence was enough to tell Amir that the beast was getting tired of his persistent whining. He was caught off guard, however, when the beast nipped his ear. He jumped and shoved the bird again in distain, this time it didn’t return to his shoulder and flew towards the clear blue sky. Amir stopped walking to follow the burning bird in the sky. He watched Hassan circle the sky a few times before diving back to him.

“It’s just ahead, however; the twins seem… preoccupied.” Amir raised and eyebrow curious. When the twins called a meeting Amir was generally the first of the riders to arrive to the House of Wonders, he was the closest so it only made sense that he was there first. Meg and May weren’t in the habit of receiving visitors, and Amir couldn’t contain his apprehension. The man could tell Hassan felt his unease because the bird nipped his ear again. “Things should be taken care of by the time you get there, so stop whining. It’s so unbecoming for the leader of Gnaji”

Amir nodded, but Hassan’s words did little to satiate his curiosity, the man didn’t even retort as Hassan nagged him. He walked in silence while Hassan began to chatter, the bird’s voice was a comfort, but still once the house came into view he couldn’t help but feel like he needed to hide and fell in to a crouch. Meg and May were in their true form, a terrifying two-headed monster, with what looked to be a normal human crushed in their grip. Amir rose eyebrow at the scene, the twins hardly ever donned their true form, and the man pulled himself to his feet, leaning his forearms against the scorching cast iron fence.

“What are they doing Hassan?”

“I think they were just bored of waiting for you.” His bird whispered to him and Amir couldn’t look away as the monster tore the man in half, each head consuming one half. Being the Leader of Gnaji he often saw carnage, was often the cause of it, but this was on an entirely different level from anything he had ever executed.

“Are you ladies fucking finished messing around?” He quipped at the monster in an attempt to hide that the twins had actually frightened him. The monster turned its two geometric heads towards him and Amir felt his muscles tense under its gaze. They stood frozen for a moment before the monster started deconstructing itself and the twins separated into their human skins.

“Welcome, Lady Sahira, Hassan. We apologize for any inconvenience”
“Welcome, Lady Sahira, Hassan. We apologize for any inconvenience”

Amir scoffed, pushing himself off the fence and walking towards the familiar sight of the Gemini twins. Now that they were back in their familiar form he could finally feel his heart rate go under control. He walked forward and past the twins before he decided to acknowledge them, the fear he felt before making him more defensive and he bite out a response as he entered the House of Wonders.

“I told you to stop fucking calling me a woman, and the wrong name. I’m not the first rider.”

“Oh but Lady Sahira, our dear rider-“
“You have only ever been her.”