Myfanwy, may you spend your lifetime
“”
Beneath the midday sunshine's glow,
“”
Beneath the midday sunshine's glow,
A bleak morning mist shrouded the creek, casting an otherworldly softness about the tableau. Sounds echoed softly into silence as though passing through a world of dreams and half-truths, and a face not twenty paces off might have belonged to a lover or stranger with equal surety. This was the killing hour.
Myfanwy ached in the quiet shadows of her creekside pool, the shimmering lilac armor of her scales heavy and uncomfortable as it constricted her lean, hungry frame. There were no lovers now to look upon from the depths with wistful eyes. It was only her, alone with her hunger and the creeping dread that each day the hunger would grow with the reddening of the leaves and the onset of winter, until not even she would know herself anymore. The lean times were like a waking nightmare, all vivid color and sound and gnashing teeth, and there had never been a time that she did not fear them. But she could no more escape them than she could escape her kelp-tangled mane or the gape of her fanged, predatory jaws.
So she cowered instead.
A disturbance stirred the surface of her waters and, driven purely by instinct, she flitted toward it like a whisper in the crystalline depths. A fawn, one of this year's crop by the spots stubbornly clinging to his hide, had wandered from the safety of his mother's side to quench his thirst in the misty pool. Myfanwy sighed happily at his innocent loveliness, the twitch of his black nose, the grace in his long and delicate legs.
Then she lunged, and the last thing the fawn's dark-almond eyes would see before it succumbed to the red froth of his watery tomb was a flash of teeth and prismatic brightness, echoing endlessly of hope and regret.
*
The onset of a bright midday sun had burned away the mist, and with it all evidence of the murder that had taken place that morning but what grass and mud could tell. Myfanwy lay under the dappled shade of a willow tree, all traces of her true nature tucked away behind the dry-land glamour of her kind. Her face was veiled with sheer rose-colored fabric, but beneath that her eyes turned skyward with the full dreamy weight of her woolgathering behind them.
The lilac lady looked lovely, serene. Not a drop of blood left on her, or spilled along the shoreline for any heartbroken doe to find. That morning might not even have happened at all.
That was how she preferred to think of it. She fed on her sad, red dreams and awoke refreshed and peaceful, with the shadow of her hunger a distant whisper in the dusty corners of her mind. The world was lovely and kind and safe, like her. Perhaps later she would rise and wander the forests around Amare Creek, share stories with the travelers that passed by her waters from time to time. For now she was content to salute the sun and daylight, and dream of brighter futures.
Myfanwy ached in the quiet shadows of her creekside pool, the shimmering lilac armor of her scales heavy and uncomfortable as it constricted her lean, hungry frame. There were no lovers now to look upon from the depths with wistful eyes. It was only her, alone with her hunger and the creeping dread that each day the hunger would grow with the reddening of the leaves and the onset of winter, until not even she would know herself anymore. The lean times were like a waking nightmare, all vivid color and sound and gnashing teeth, and there had never been a time that she did not fear them. But she could no more escape them than she could escape her kelp-tangled mane or the gape of her fanged, predatory jaws.
So she cowered instead.
A disturbance stirred the surface of her waters and, driven purely by instinct, she flitted toward it like a whisper in the crystalline depths. A fawn, one of this year's crop by the spots stubbornly clinging to his hide, had wandered from the safety of his mother's side to quench his thirst in the misty pool. Myfanwy sighed happily at his innocent loveliness, the twitch of his black nose, the grace in his long and delicate legs.
Then she lunged, and the last thing the fawn's dark-almond eyes would see before it succumbed to the red froth of his watery tomb was a flash of teeth and prismatic brightness, echoing endlessly of hope and regret.
The onset of a bright midday sun had burned away the mist, and with it all evidence of the murder that had taken place that morning but what grass and mud could tell. Myfanwy lay under the dappled shade of a willow tree, all traces of her true nature tucked away behind the dry-land glamour of her kind. Her face was veiled with sheer rose-colored fabric, but beneath that her eyes turned skyward with the full dreamy weight of her woolgathering behind them.
The lilac lady looked lovely, serene. Not a drop of blood left on her, or spilled along the shoreline for any heartbroken doe to find. That morning might not even have happened at all.
That was how she preferred to think of it. She fed on her sad, red dreams and awoke refreshed and peaceful, with the shadow of her hunger a distant whisper in the dusty corners of her mind. The world was lovely and kind and safe, like her. Perhaps later she would rise and wander the forests around Amare Creek, share stories with the travelers that passed by her waters from time to time. For now she was content to salute the sun and daylight, and dream of brighter futures.
And on your cheeks O may the roses
“”
Dance for a hundred years or so.
“”
Dance for a hundred years or so.
