Madness At Noon {COMPLETED}

Blood, Pain, and Cheese Balls 6/10

It was another two days until I was well enough to stand. Cheshire, hovering like a clucking hen, scuttled and scurried, doing more harm than good as I trod on his tail thrice and nearly tripped over his feet and broke my neck another two times. Finally, I could take no more and swore that never again would I buy him his favorite premium canned cat food from E-Z Mart if he did not give me some personal space.

He at least had the decency to look ashamed as he shrugged and told me with a simple look that he never liked canned cat food, hated it in fact, and ate it simply to make me happy. Ducking down one of the aisles, Cheshire returned with two jars of strawberry jelly, his tail held high.

Jack Koori had not been the one to eat all of my Bompas and Parr jellies...

This thieving little...

It was impossible for me not to love him.

Living within the confines of a convenient store was an odd existence. I suppose this is what normal people feel when they go on ridiculous camping trips to be eaten by bugs and 'accidentally' shoot one another, mistaking a small biped in neon clothing for a rabid bear. There were no bugs in the small shop, thank Heavens. The seemingly endless supplies of dried jerky, canned soups, frozen waffles, cold tea, and gallons upon gallons of blue Icee – I am afraid Cheshire had turned into quite the Slurpee junkie during all of this and had become rather attached to a painfully pink Big Gulp cup that was larger than his head – was a far cry from the usual five course meals in the dining hall and chandeliers of Apartment 57.

It was all very... domestic.

And nic-

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.

Dear Lord. I needed to get out of here and start killing some people before I turned into one of them.

My legs were like wet sand after the tide has drawn away. Standing alone took enough energy that breathing suddenly became the most difficult challenge of my life. I clutched one of the metal shelving, my other hand gripping my chest, willing strength into my lungs; forcing the blood, old and new alike, through every vein; commanding every thudding beat of my heart.

Damn dying. I was Mistress Noon, the Lady in Red. I had more important things to do than be sitting on some filthy floor, passing around a Big Gulp cup like it was an offering plate at St. Scurra's. Even if the past few days had been... unexpectedly enjoyable.

And now that I was not dying, I needed to think. Hard. Because try as I may to forget, I could not ignore what the Gentleman had told me that night.

Ah, if I closed my eyes, I could still see the stars and taste his erotic blood on my lips...

Yet all the delicious sensations in the world came crashing down when I thought of the name: the Madman. If what the Gentleman said was true – if Shinji was somehow alive – how did a man survive having his head chopped off with a fire ax?

Shivering, I leaned on Cheshire's shoulder as he gently helped me to a rack of cheap umbrellas. I refused to touch any of the hideous, chrome canes propped up next to the store counter that basically screamed senility. An umbrella worked just as well. I chose a sleek, cheap black one and tested my weight on its plastic. It held. Barely.

"Now," I said to myself, to the boy, "let us get out of this place." I glanced at Cheshire. "To home." He grinned and nodded.

I did not miss the one last look Cheshire made as I limped with all the grace of a nearly dead woman to the front doors and unlocked them, one last moment for his eyes to sweep over the chaos we had made: the nest in the corner, which had grown larger as Cheshire wiggled in to keep me warm after the central heating quit last night; the discarded trash, remnants of our midnight raidings and attempts at partially civilized meals; the heavily chewed remains of the storekeeper, just gnawed bones now. He gripped his Big Gulp cup just a little tighter in his hands. He absolutely refused to leave the thing behind, absent-mindedly gnawing on the straw as he looked back.

I did not look back. I did not need to. There are sometimes when I forget, sometimes when I slit the throat of my own memories and ground them into dust and throw the dust into the winds and lightning of my mind. But this, I think, this I would remember.

I did not need a store. I had Cheshire by my side as I stepped back into the city, still dressed in my large, fluffy, pink robe covered with blood, blinking against the afternoon light and explosion of smog and machines.

I had Cheshire.

So, as we walked down the streets of early morning Vexus City, the rustling of cars as slow and lazy as the tickling rays of lights creeping over the rooftops, I talked and Cheshire listened. I told him stories I had never spoken to another living soul, not even my lover. I told him of Before, of a time when my name was not yet Noon and I was Mistress of no people. I told him who I was and what I became and how Madman Shinji entered my story. I told him the real reason why I came to Vexus City. I told him what really happened the night the Gentleman stabbed my own blade seven point seven centimeters away from my heart.

I told him about Grimwade and Heartshear and Krókódill, the legends I had seen, the blood they had spilled, the times we fought together and bled together. I did not tell him of my first kill – I no longer remembered – but I told him how proud I was of him for making his first and how I thought his story would unfurl and the greatness he was destined to conquer.

And I told him... I told him about my daughter.

All throughout he listened, sometimes holding my arm when my breathing became labored, sometimes walking silently by my side, always sipping from his Big Gulp. Maybe he could talk, yet kept it his greatest secret. Maybe he could, but he did not today. I talked enough for the two of us, enough for a lifetime, a dozen lifetimes, for that is what I had lived within the span of one.

I told him and I told him and I told him, still telling as we walked up the marble steps to Apartment 57 together. There was more – always more – but as I unlocked the door and let it swing open, the blistering scent of death and passion spilling out from my home, I stopped telling and stood just outside the threshold without going in.

"Cheshire," I said, my voice slightly hoarse, "if there was a madman in your backyard, stringing cheeseballs to your trees, how would you get rid of him?"

He looked at me, his yellow eyes bright even in the gloom of the empty house. I wondered at the intelligence there. At how a cowering, shivering beast grown in a cage beneath a madhouse could ever become so cunning, so proud, so alive.

He said nothing at all.

He simply turned and walked into the house.

It was an impossible question and an impossible answer. The children's poem was nothing but nonsense. The real Madman... he could not be solved like a riddle. And I... Hell, I could barely stand. What was I supposed to do with the Gentleman pounding on my door, demanding some terrible solution to a problem that could not be explained by the likes of-

Cheshire stepped back into the gleam of light pouring through the front door. His cup was gone. In the morning din, his patches of fur shone like gold and his eyes became wells of pure ore. I still had not entered, and he did not come out. Instead, he stood tall, and I was reminded of the way Jack Koori had looked when the Royal Guard intruded upon my home; how a boy could turn into a man in the blink of an eye.

He handed me a folded piece of paper before disappearing back inside. A final swish of his tail flicked my hand, gentle, like a caress.

Slowly, I opened the paper and stared at the messily scrawled words written:

I'd chop down the tree.

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Sneaky bastard.

I knew he could talk.

Folding the bit of paper, I slipped it between my breasts for safekeeping. I then got a spare change of clothes from the entryway closet, left the bloody robe on the floor to be burned later, and pulled down a large red sun hat trimmed with pearls from a box on a high shelf.

Very well then.

I would do as I must, as I always did.

I was Mistress Bloody Noon.

It was time the Gentleman and I had a little talk. Only now it would be on my terms.