pyramid song
One deep breath, and then another.
Pre-dawn on the plains of Giza - the sky is yellow and endless.
Her hands are shaking slightly, with the effort of holding up even such a tiny frame.
The sands are yellow and endless.
She is standing, hands pressing down into smooth stone, something white and pristine. Balance. Feet pointed to a clear, clear sky; toes pointed to the heavens. She is facing east, and the sun is coming up, bright and orange against the bright and orange sand. Breathe. Once again.
Her hair is trailing down in her face, tickling her neck, her nose. It needs cutting again. Her hands are gripping one block of limestone, placed so carefully around the tip of an iceberg of limestone. A limestone masterpiece. From this vantage point, Buffy can close her eyes, inhale, and smell the spice down in the market place, the salty natron, the cinnamon-like myhrr. The people, unwashed and busy on a pre-dawn morning.
Her horizon blends-- her sky is sand, her ground is freckled with a few clouds, orange and pink in sunlight.
The sun is getting brighter.
To her left, north, there are people running around like ants, pulling blocks up ramps, creating masterpieces. She can see them, out of the corner of her eye, moving as a wave along the sand. Her head is pointed towards the ground; her feet to the sky. They run along her horizon, block by block putting together a pyramid.
Pony-tail brushing a few stray grains off the perfect pyramidal point, breath easy and cool. In and out, air smells like spices. Feet pointed to the sky, a beacon for the gods of old, Horus and Isis and-- those other ones that Willow would have known, if Willow were here.
Toes pointed up, always up. Meditate quietly.
Her hands gripped the very spire of history itself. The smallest pyramid at Giza. Ten thousand Egyptians below her head, doing architectural wonders over a thousand years before Christ.
The sun is even brighter; half of its disk is sitting and staring at her, making the peaceful moment speed up. Her breath quickens in turn. The people go about below her. Toes stay pointed at the sky.
She knows, now, that it wasn't their fault; her sister, dead for almost a year now, doesn't. No matter. It wasn't their fault, and she takes another breath. Deep. Easy. The air tastes like spices, myrrh. Palm-wine.
People are scurrying around below her, in her inverted sky, speaking Egyptian and creating a civillization, one block at a time. She imagines that she can hear them.
Breathe, and then again.
And then: a graceful flip, and she is sitting cross-legged, straddling the point of the pyramid that will houses a pharoh. Facing east. Years of balance training, Tai-Chi, allows her to be content, completed, and sit at ease, watching a civilization grow. It's almost morning; light heavy in the sky. The breeze picks up a little on her skin, blowing granules of sand around. She can look down, and see history remaking itself. She can look to the East; the shimmer, just beyond the sunrise, is stationary for now, static.
She can feel with her whole being the morning. It's what she was born to do. She can feel it, and she can breathe it in. Inhale. Exhale. The smell of civillization, millions of people. She remembers the look of Sunnydale, as something gnawed bits of it away until there was nothing left, modern houses flattened, strip malls dust. The scent of memory: natron.
Dawn died almost a year ago, the sun harsh and continual. Breathe, and again. The pyramid to the north, larger than the one she straddles, is half-finished. She wonders whether it will be finished before something gnaws it down, too. She hopes so.
Breathe, and then once again. Air is still filling her lungs. The sun is higher in the sky, now, above the activity down below, a watchful god and permanent cycle. She feels good to be a part of it, however temporary. Perhaps in this chaotic mess of time, the gods hear prayers and protect their people. The pharohs are at the height of their power.
Breathe, and once again.
She mumbles, 'somewhere, let me find my sister', just in case.
And so Buffy sits, and watches the sun come up.