Now I'm standing in a wasteland
Desert bones and dried up places
It crept upon them like the kiss of the tides on ocean beach shores, a gentle lapping pressed into the edge of their consciousness. The trees split themselves into indiscernible patterns and boughs bent low into the underbrush surrounding them. The day was fading, and it was the hushed threat of night that whispered sweet nothings into the ears of any still lucid enough to pay attention. They were but muted sounds that brought a hum of fear as they pushed the dying light out of the spaces it slept, a warning call to any who knew its words. But she never learned their songs; in her travels she never flew into the skin-crawling sense of danger like that which lurked in the shadows of the forest. And so though the sun was setting and the wind picked up to bring a chill to the air, she was unaware of any danger that might have wished to show its darkened face.
It had been but moments in the face of eternity that the weight of her wings dropped her into the swallows of whatever land she stepped into. She had seen many faces and bodies and sights in the time since she disappeared from her small village; useless knowledge of gods that didn't show rattled in a mind built for that one purpose. Everything about the world outside of which they existed was kept from her, all the views and wonders and miracles held out of reach of a child that knew of nothing but the lives of ghostly figures. She waded through the long-limbed trees that seemed to grasp her close and have no sense of pattern, and as her thoughts swirled aimlessly around she had appeared to lose her way. Night was creeping in and darkening out the already-muted atmosphere--she would have kicked herself in dismay at her negligence had a snapped twig not sounded nearby.
She should have been alone, but the noise alerted her to the possibility that someone had found her. Her footfalls ceased as motion halted, ears pricked high in vigilance. She knew nothing about murders, about a monster that lurked just behind the curtains of the weeping branches. Even if she had, she probably wouldn't have believed it to be a monster at all. "Someone is watching." Her voice was low, simple, a slight roughness to the otherwise curved edges. There was a sense of a hidden wolf, a serpent, a silent thing sitting still in the cover of the shadows.
It had been but moments in the face of eternity that the weight of her wings dropped her into the swallows of whatever land she stepped into. She had seen many faces and bodies and sights in the time since she disappeared from her small village; useless knowledge of gods that didn't show rattled in a mind built for that one purpose. Everything about the world outside of which they existed was kept from her, all the views and wonders and miracles held out of reach of a child that knew of nothing but the lives of ghostly figures. She waded through the long-limbed trees that seemed to grasp her close and have no sense of pattern, and as her thoughts swirled aimlessly around she had appeared to lose her way. Night was creeping in and darkening out the already-muted atmosphere--she would have kicked herself in dismay at her negligence had a snapped twig not sounded nearby.
She should have been alone, but the noise alerted her to the possibility that someone had found her. Her footfalls ceased as motion halted, ears pricked high in vigilance. She knew nothing about murders, about a monster that lurked just behind the curtains of the weeping branches. Even if she had, she probably wouldn't have believed it to be a monster at all. "Someone is watching." Her voice was low, simple, a slight roughness to the otherwise curved edges. There was a sense of a hidden wolf, a serpent, a silent thing sitting still in the cover of the shadows.
