Noah flew with slow, powerful beats of griffin wings, a great span of feather and muscle. The salt flats stretched endlessly, white even in darkness, pale as bone beneath the stars. Where the moon struck them directly, the ground glimmered with a cold, treacherous sheen. Wind whirled at the surface below, lifting faint veils of white dust that drifted like ghosts across the flats. From this height, he narrowed his focus, fixing his gaze on the flats below.
Rain had passed through recently. He could see the evidence of it now: a thin, perfect sheet of water stretched across parts of the flats, reflecting the sky so precisely that it was hard to tell where earth ended and heaven began. Below him, constellations trembled in the mirrored surfaces of pudles. For a moment, it looked as though he were flying through the heavens twice over.
From that higher vantage, something broke the reflection symmetry below. At first Noah thought it was another trick of reflection, thought it was salt and starlight conspiring to shape meaning out of nothing. But the shape held as he banked, a small, dark figure seated amid the endless white. A woman. Even from this distance he could make out the deliberate scatter of gear beside her: pack laid close, cloth or bedroll unfurled, the posture of someone who was not simply passing through.
A spark of concern flared sharp and immediate, cutting through the Sea’s quiet. No one stayed on the flats without reason, and reasons here were rarely benign.
He widened his arc, circling high above her, wings adjusting to catch the colder currents. Griffin eyes sharpened. He scanned the horizon first. Then closer, tracing the ground in widening spirals, searching for shadows that moved when they shouldn’t, or the subtle distortion that marked something waiting just out of sight.
The Sea lay deceptively still.
Rain had passed through recently. He could see the evidence of it now: a thin, perfect sheet of water stretched across parts of the flats, reflecting the sky so precisely that it was hard to tell where earth ended and heaven began. Below him, constellations trembled in the mirrored surfaces of pudles. For a moment, it looked as though he were flying through the heavens twice over.
From that higher vantage, something broke the reflection symmetry below. At first Noah thought it was another trick of reflection, thought it was salt and starlight conspiring to shape meaning out of nothing. But the shape held as he banked, a small, dark figure seated amid the endless white. A woman. Even from this distance he could make out the deliberate scatter of gear beside her: pack laid close, cloth or bedroll unfurled, the posture of someone who was not simply passing through.
A spark of concern flared sharp and immediate, cutting through the Sea’s quiet. No one stayed on the flats without reason, and reasons here were rarely benign.
He widened his arc, circling high above her, wings adjusting to catch the colder currents. Griffin eyes sharpened. He scanned the horizon first. Then closer, tracing the ground in widening spirals, searching for shadows that moved when they shouldn’t, or the subtle distortion that marked something waiting just out of sight.
The Sea lay deceptively still.
noah
you touched my heavy heart and made it light
