the most dangerous woman of all is the one who refuses to rely on your sword because she carries her own
The slopes and woods that lay faithful in the day are darkly ominous by nightfall. The routes that were dappled with dashes of sunlight were wholly obscure now. The silvery luminescence of the moon granted no relief, its sugary light not even a trickle now, as Maerys's lanterns conform to the abrupt and absolute lack of light. The squinting of her mauve orbs did nothing to focus the gloomy and uncertain path ahead.
The darkness drew closer to her every instant, pressing down on her haunches and spine and then she knew suffocation of the senses was just as prominent a menace as the latching and squeezing of her trachea. Her cerebrum swirled from the smog of her thoughts, the smoldering embers of an era where there had been other presences with her and around her, the proximity of those she cherished and attended for intensely and entirely. The umbrae eddied about her slender silhouette, tendrils of ink; bleak warnings of her seclusion.
The trees that were luminous in the sunbeams rose over the mare's back threateningly now and the dense bark of their trunks extended no shield from the icy breeze that proceeded to ripple around her. The only din in her hammers was the syrupy sound of white noise which helped little to alleviate the stillness. The silence had the tranquility of a necropolis.
Though the forest was dark and foreboding, there was a sense of harmony and unity in its sullen ambiance.
Her gaze flicked to the tree before her, the dark body expanding upwards into leafless boughs that interlocked with its neighbor's like the arms of well-acquainted compatriots. Though the trunks were densely packed, there was sufficient space that would permit someone to maneuver through the gaps where the trees neglected to defend. Her tapered snout reached for the unpolished base of the tree, her velvet flesh grazing the tree with a fragile mellowness. The forest still emanated must from springtimes past, noting to those who progressed that rain had once been here and would come again. It was the reek of life. The forest teemed with it.
As she digressed through the thick masses of foliage, blundering on rootstocks and collapsed limbs, the crisp raw soil underfoot, the raven heaven heeded her diligently from overhead (the shaded seraph of this Delumine forest).
