To the tune of "I'm a shark, I'm a shark..."

This week's prompts are from Sam C with 'hospitality', Mikhail with 'mrow' and Xpholia with 'murder puppies' (okay, so Misa doesn't have the 'sweater' part of 'sweater puppies', but the sentiment's the same, right?). We get a little story about a a mountain and the two women on it. Enjoy!

Riddle Me This:

When you lived up in the mountains away from all possible contact except through your seer’s orb, sometimes you had make your own fun.

“I’m a sphinx. I’m a sphinx, suck my dick I’m a sphinx.”

Misa half-danced, half-pranced around the rocky clearing in front of her cave. “I’m a sphinx. I’m a sphinx, kiss my ass I’m a sphinx.” Her long tail was held up high as she bounced from foot to foot. She was a touch more human than some of her other kin; though her lower body and legs were that of a large feline – spotted like a snow leopard’s coat, but larger than a mountain lion – her face and upper chest were those of a woman. Her family had lived in North America for centuries, but there were still traces of her kind’s Egyptian heritage in her features.

“I’m a sphinx. I’m a sphinx, lick my tits I’m a sphinx.”

It wasn’t exactly the most dignified of pastimes and the elders would look in askance at her for doing it, but Misa was quite young, less than a century old. She was allowed to be a little ridiculous, especially since there was no one else for miles around to see her prancing about in tune to her epithet-laden nonsense songs.

Misa passed her trials just about a decade ago, earning the right to take the role of a guardian. Her kind were originally created to protect the wealth and tombs of ancient rulers, but while those dynasties had withered and died off, their sphinxes had survived and for centuries had taken it upon themselves to fulfill the tasks that they’d been bred for. Many of the world’s hidden treasures still remained so because a sphinx protected them.

She’d been assigned to this part of the Appalachian mountains. A short distance farther up the mountain from her home and watchpost was a forgotten Cherokee tomb. Within it lay the body of a once-infamous Raven Mocker, her name lost to time. She’d been murdered by those she’d once preyed upon, her body and possessions sealed away far from any other human. Though the local tribes had tried to erase all knowledge of her existence, some stories had survived, vague but dire warnings of a great evil upon the mountain and their descendants discouraged anyone from going too far into the mountains.

Fortunately, sphinxes didn’t need to solely rely on such mundane methods as human interaction to find their roosts, and they weren’t as easily dissuaded in their duties. Still, despite the locals’ efforts to keep others away from the mountain, some always refused to heed their warnings.

Of those that ignored such advice, few ever got this close to Misa’s roost. Even in death, the Raven Mocker’s spirit tainted the landscape. Those who found their way, through luck or cunning to this particular peak felt a seeping preternatural chill in their bones that grew heavier and colder the closer they drew to the witch’s tomb. The nights felt darker and more oppressive, and sometimes they could hear the croaking calls of something that was not a raven.

At least those were the stories. Misa hadn’t felt any of that, and she was actually responsible for some of the legends about the cursed mountain. She’d stalk travellers, making them aware that they were being followed, but never letting them see her. From the depths of the forest she’d loose nerve-shredding screams that couldn’t be passed off as the cries of bobcats, mountain lions or elk. She’d circle camping sites, growling and snuffing to terrorize men and women in their tents. So far not a single person had ever had the nerve to reach her cave, and over the past decade, the townsfolk had started to tell rumours of a monster in the mountains.

Frankly, she was a little insulted that they came up with explanations like ‘bigfoot’, ‘wendigo’ or ‘goatman’ for all the trouble. A few came closer than most with assuming she was an Alien Big Cat, but Misa supposed she couldn’t really be upset that no one knew what she was. That was rather the point, wasn’t it? Besides, who expected a sphinx of all things to be guarding a mountain cave in North America?

Still, it would be nice to have some credit, and those sentiments had led to the creation of this particular song. It would also be nice to maybe, possibly, occasionally have some company. Sphinxes were solitary creatures. They could go decades without seeing another of their kind, making them perfect guardians for lonely tombs or long-lost treasures.

Finishing her dance, Misa sat on her haunches on the edge of a promontory, looking over her domain. She spread her wings. Sphinxes were too heavy to fly well, but their wings let them glide quite easily and turn what might be a deadly fall into a swift, crushing pounce.

The sun had come up, but it was still a cold spring morning, a chilly wind sweeping up around her and stirring her locks of black hair, ruffling her grey-white feathers and rippling the lush spotted fur of her back and belly. Her face and chest were both bare to the elements, but she scarcely felt the cold. Just as one of her kin in the depths of a desert would be largely unbothered by the merciless heat, so too was Misa preternaturally protected from the harsh elements of her home.

She scanned the horizon, looking across the trees and sniffing the wait that swept up from the lowlands along the mountainside. In the distance, she spotted a patch of white moving against the grey rock. A mountain goat, looking for more of spring’s bounty.

“Why yes,” Misa said to herself as she crouched on the rocks, wiggling her backside as she judged the next jump. “I will have the mutton today, thank you.” With that, she leapt into the air, bounding towards the treeline on a direct course for her prey.

~

Kelli cursed under her breath as the wind picked up. She was wearing a thick, insulated windbreaker and somehow the cold still found its way inside in a manner she’d never experienced anywhere else on the planet. She paused, adjusting her pack and looking up at the sky, a handful of tiny white clouds stark against the bright blue of day. How can it be this cold? She wondered, when the sun’s so bright?

She was tired and sore. She’d been sleeping less and less the last few nights and she was regretting the bull-headed pride that made her reject all offers of assistance for this journey. She’d been hiking before, she’d worked in cold-weather digs before, she knew what she was doing, she’d be fine. She wished more people had called her out on her bullshit, but she was self-aware enough to also realize that doing that would just made her stubborn ass dig her heels in harder.

The young woman had spent months chasing leads, cutting through close-mouthed elders, drunken tavern stories and dusty archives full of faded papers and more legends, tall tales and bare-faced lies to find the truth. It hadn’t been easy or fun, but she’d done it all on her own even with no support from the university or anyone else. This was her discovery. Once she verified it, then they could talk about an actual archaeological expedition, but she wasn’t going to risk her reputation and let someone else take all the credit. This was going to be fully, completely, unequivocally hers.

The elders, particularly her paternal grandfather, had tried to talk her out of it. They went on about ‘heritage’ and ‘protecting their culture’, but Kelli was only one-quarter Cherokee. She’d never lived with the tribe and everyone in town had always treated her and her parents like outsiders. Whenever she’d tried to learn about her Native heritage, they’d always shut down, saying she was too much like her father. It was like dangling a carrot in front of her and then snatching it away.

Well, if they weren’t going to tell her anything, then she’d learn about it on her own terms. That’s why she got into archaeology and why she’d committed herself to this stupid solo trip up the mountain. Once you cut through all the stories and hoopla, there was supposedly an untouched tomb of a great sorceress somewhere up on this particular mountain. Once she’d started looking into it, oh then they started to care a lot about what she was doing.

Why can’t I go there? You’ll disturb a grave.

Have you ever been there? No.

Do you even know it’s there? No.

Has anyone from the tribe, in the last two hundred years, been there? No.

Then how important could it possibly be if you won’t talk about it, won’t tend to it and don’t even know that it exists? You can’t go there.

And around and around and around they go...

Well, at least now she was on her way. It had taken several days to get this far and she wasn’t going to turn back now. No weird chills, no animals snuffing around her camp, no black birds staring at her like she owed them money... nothing was going to stand in her way.

Then she came around a large boulder to find that there was, in fact, something standing in her way. Or, to be more precise, sitting.

Seated in the middle of the trail was a woman. At least, that’s what Kelli first assumed she was, but in the seconds that followed, more and more impossibilities piled themselves on top of each other. Firstly, despite the bitter cold of the mountain air she was topless, but she sat on all fours like a cat only... she was a cat. A long tail coil around her, the tip of it twitching every now and again. Her hindquarters were covered in smooth, spotted grey fur. Off-white wings speckled with black were folded against her back like an owl at rest.

Her arms were the forelegs of a cat, her hands were paws, only with large thumbs. Her eyes were a greyish blue and she had long black hair tied into crude braids. Of course, Kelli mind insisted, insanely latching onto one tiny detail among so many others, those thumbs of hers probably aren’t very dexterous.

As part of Kelli’s mind told her that she was sitting in front of an actual honest-to-God, real live sphinx, another part was screaming even louder in denial, trying to get her to accept that what she was seeing wasn’t what she was seeing. Another part told her to run, but another, just as contradictory kept her rooted to the spot. She gaped like fish, trying to process every impossibility at once and failing. Then, to top it all off, the thing spoke in perfect, if oddly accented English.

“Hey,” the beast woman said, her mouth turning up in a smile. “Want to hear a riddle?”