Arduinna watches as he puts his harp away - so delicately and carefully, as if it were a child, she decides - and follows him with her eyes as he rises to his feet. [say]"One would think,"[/say] she says slowly, [say]"that you have never seen rotting wood before. Very well then, bard. Follow, if you would."[/say]
Without another word Arduinna leaps to the air, and where once there was a woman now soars a barn owl the colour of moonlight. Swooping in a slow circle about the mother tree, she waits but a moment before leading Jigano away, further into the Wildwood.
It is some time before she pauses, and when she takes to the ground again and straightens up in her two-legged form, it is with great sorrow and pain upon her face. As though the woods here harm her, somehow. Around them lies a broken glade, the trees and flowers withered, the leaves the colour of ashes. [say]"Like old parchment. Like the life has been sucked out,"[/say] she whispers.
Without another word Arduinna leaps to the air, and where once there was a woman now soars a barn owl the colour of moonlight. Swooping in a slow circle about the mother tree, she waits but a moment before leading Jigano away, further into the Wildwood.
It is some time before she pauses, and when she takes to the ground again and straightens up in her two-legged form, it is with great sorrow and pain upon her face. As though the woods here harm her, somehow. Around them lies a broken glade, the trees and flowers withered, the leaves the colour of ashes. [say]"Like old parchment. Like the life has been sucked out,"[/say] she whispers.
