MABEL
No need for the parasol as she stretched out into the evening sprawl, indifferent to the cold, to the haze, to the choking measures miring the rest of the world down. Perhaps there was something to be said for either ignorance, inexperience, or skirting around everyone else’s trials and tribulations – a time to adhere to learning curves, before firing away into their own devastations and ruins. And while Mabel didn’t intend to gloriously fuck up like so many of them had here, that didn’t mean it wouldn’t happen eventually.
She wandered into the abyss of the Glade; old habits gesturing and adhering to her movements, lingering down the familiar grasses. Once she’d snagged and snared traps along these reaches, secretive, furtive things, because if their crops didn’t supply food then there’d be starvation – and eventually it came anyway to the little farm, to the smaller children, to the ignorant parents.
Her fingers grasped hold hard on her little parasol, taken out with her in case she meandered for too long and morning rose in fringes of dangerous sun. Another seemed to be doing the same, and Mabel froze in familiar fashion, predator or prey, marked in her vicious uncertainty. But as her eyes focused, she realized she knew who it was, and a customary greeting floated from her presence. “Wessex,” and a nod of her head, respectful, even given the last time they’d spoken.
She wandered into the abyss of the Glade; old habits gesturing and adhering to her movements, lingering down the familiar grasses. Once she’d snagged and snared traps along these reaches, secretive, furtive things, because if their crops didn’t supply food then there’d be starvation – and eventually it came anyway to the little farm, to the smaller children, to the ignorant parents.
Her fingers grasped hold hard on her little parasol, taken out with her in case she meandered for too long and morning rose in fringes of dangerous sun. Another seemed to be doing the same, and Mabel froze in familiar fashion, predator or prey, marked in her vicious uncertainty. But as her eyes focused, she realized she knew who it was, and a customary greeting floated from her presence. “Wessex,” and a nod of her head, respectful, even given the last time they’d spoken.
I bare my teeth
and stretch my claws out
and stretch my claws out
