Come sit right here and sleep while I slip poison in your ear
(Because that is the end, the end, the end –
And sometimes not at all.)
If Mabel had thought of weaponry holstered inside her form before this moment, it scarcely seemed to matter, as her talons unfurled, as they gripped and grasped and pulled the hare towards her. A crunch resounded, ribcages, spines, and it didn’t sicken her. It was nothing but the slightest glimmer of triumph, a glow of satisfaction. Not her first kill, not when she’d been raised as a farm child –
But the first as a bird. The first as an Ascended. The first as someone risen and trying and striving again.
Her eyes scanned, watched, while her prey’s life blinked out. The dragon, far larger, far grander, far more dangerous, descended, scaring, intimidating, the faction of moushrooms below. Another snagged and snared, and while she was an emotionless little blot against the sky, she permitted another round of victorious clamber to fizzle and sizzle amongst the bond.
Short-lived and hollow, perhaps, but something after all the madness.
What did you think? came through, and Mabel didn’t give it a direction, a wave, whether it was about the disastrous plunge of LongNight, how they’d barely scraped away with their lives, or the here and now. The present. Moments interspersed without tragedy. Open-ended.
And sometimes not at all.)
If Mabel had thought of weaponry holstered inside her form before this moment, it scarcely seemed to matter, as her talons unfurled, as they gripped and grasped and pulled the hare towards her. A crunch resounded, ribcages, spines, and it didn’t sicken her. It was nothing but the slightest glimmer of triumph, a glow of satisfaction. Not her first kill, not when she’d been raised as a farm child –
But the first as a bird. The first as an Ascended. The first as someone risen and trying and striving again.
Her eyes scanned, watched, while her prey’s life blinked out. The dragon, far larger, far grander, far more dangerous, descended, scaring, intimidating, the faction of moushrooms below. Another snagged and snared, and while she was an emotionless little blot against the sky, she permitted another round of victorious clamber to fizzle and sizzle amongst the bond.
Short-lived and hollow, perhaps, but something after all the madness.
What did you think? came through, and Mabel didn’t give it a direction, a wave, whether it was about the disastrous plunge of LongNight, how they’d barely scraped away with their lives, or the here and now. The present. Moments interspersed without tragedy. Open-ended.
MABEL
