Paying My Respects

Panic will achieve nothing. My lips part into a generous oval and lungs suck hard, drawing at length a breath to slow the hammer of my  suddenly unruly heart. At the same time these pale eyes shut and I make a conscious effort to stop; to really unwind. Another breath is taken, then another and another. Every time I exhale, a feeling is volunteered to depart with it, forced from this physical vessel like a withered leaf from the tree; fear, confusion and surprise are purged so that room for clarity and consideration can be made. It is working, this technique that Old Mother taught me to reign in my emotions, and refreshed significantly, I once more allow the not-Fae, to invade my visual field. Only a second has really passed by. To my relief, that towering predator he had appeared to me to be, has vanished into something so much smaller and more reasonable; still huge of course, considering my measly height, burdened further by disease, but I no longer need to lift my chin at least to behold his whole length across the way. Listening ears receive his apology properly as the deafening thrum of pulsing blood begins to soften and I manage a look for him, that isn’t quite so unfriendly. My spirit isn’t mean. I peer, still with caution, between his upturned palms and then again to his face, long, lean and framed by stark white (all very foreign traits indeed). It was as my own began to examine his eyes, that I imagined something familiar about them, the queerest hunch. At the feeling, my nose wrinkles a little and my mind moves to expel it: I have never seen this human before… There had been another, of course, a female with a fiery head of hair that reminded me of Arduinna. It seemed that the curse of the not-Fae was already leaking into the depths of The Greatwood. I’d seen two in as many weeks. After a long time spent watching him, I asked: “what are you doing in The Greatwood?” My voice retained a little of the worry since worked through and I stood as before, waving precariously between one desire to flee (perhaps there were more with him), and another of toxic curiosity. “…and what business have you at the shrine?”