in tenebris est veritas.
Chaele busies their hands with the stripping of the dry tree, a rare treasure of its own in a land that is otherwise wet and alive. Their arms are carved in meticulous patterns, what might have once been a dark and bloody ritual now simply a series of raised lines on their skin. After the easily stripped branches are retrieved, they take to the slender trunk itself by peeling away its outer bark.
They glance at Talyson only after he has spoken his final question, the sharp nose of their mask moving liberally in search of the dismissed familiar for a few moments. “I read the wilderness for its signs,” they answer, though not without a short pause to assess whether this stranger was worthy of her simple truth. But what could it harm? “The land, its animals, its spirits… I protect them, as I can, and in return I take from them what secrets they may offer. Healing, visions, knowledge, divinations.”
They pause to inspect a piece that has begun to decompose beneath a small swathe of fungal growth, raising it to the narrow space between their nose and mask to take a discriminatory sniff. After a moment’s consideration they tuck it away beneath their cloak, then set to their lonesome work once more.
“I have not asked you to trust me. You are wise not to. But you are right to trust your curiosity. Your instinct to follow. Perhaps you know more than you seem to, about what it means to commune with the wilds.” His first question rings in the back of her mind, but its answer feels irrelevant alongside the memories of the long gone laughter and disappearing dragonling. Her jaw, a sliver of it visible behind the mask, tenses as she finds herself surrounded by phenomena that she knew too little about.
Then, with an uncanny candor, she clears her throat. “At the very least, you will eat.”
They glance at Talyson only after he has spoken his final question, the sharp nose of their mask moving liberally in search of the dismissed familiar for a few moments. “I read the wilderness for its signs,” they answer, though not without a short pause to assess whether this stranger was worthy of her simple truth. But what could it harm? “The land, its animals, its spirits… I protect them, as I can, and in return I take from them what secrets they may offer. Healing, visions, knowledge, divinations.”
They pause to inspect a piece that has begun to decompose beneath a small swathe of fungal growth, raising it to the narrow space between their nose and mask to take a discriminatory sniff. After a moment’s consideration they tuck it away beneath their cloak, then set to their lonesome work once more.
“I have not asked you to trust me. You are wise not to. But you are right to trust your curiosity. Your instinct to follow. Perhaps you know more than you seem to, about what it means to commune with the wilds.” His first question rings in the back of her mind, but its answer feels irrelevant alongside the memories of the long gone laughter and disappearing dragonling. Her jaw, a sliver of it visible behind the mask, tenses as she finds herself surrounded by phenomena that she knew too little about.
Then, with an uncanny candor, she clears her throat. “At the very least, you will eat.”
