Sanctity hasn't been quite so overwhelmed since their early days as an initiate, rising before the dawn to grovel and sleeping long after dusk. She is acquainted to waking before the sun, of course, but not to this strange and unfamiliar land. She is used to guarding crumbling, ivy-strangled stone, not endless lengths of frost-sheathed prairie. She is used to hunting… well, she is not used to hunting rabbits, let her say. It is an acquired taste, but one she is taking to more easily than she had expected.
Perhaps… perhaps her god is smoothing her path, as the hares trample the prairie grass smooth. Perhaps she walks down a path of light. No, she thinks instantly, stepping weary through the entrance to this 'camp', you are a fallen-away cat, never forget, a sinner and the worst of them. She still does not know why she has not atoned. There has been time, and plenty of occasion.
Instead, she is picking her way through sleeping cats to one of the northward burrows. The moon is high, and she is dusty and pawsore with a day of hunting. Failure and failure, and finally success. She is not so adept at hunting her new quarry, but perhaps she can learn. Her first prize is clamped between her teeth tight enough to sow bloodless wounds.
" Child, " she says in a low whisper, around the rabbit, peering into the den. They are asleep, looking surprisingly peaceful. She does not know why she had expected otherwise… they are beyond the land of midnight prayers. She does not know why she came here at all.
She does know she is not alone. Wide, deer-round eyes lift to meet the chained visage of the first one to welcome them, mismatched eyes twinkling in the low evening light. " Thou art watching over them? " she murmurs, setting the hare down with infinite care. On a hoarse exhale, she admits, " …I am glad of it. "
Her claws twitch in their sheaths. She glances at the child, set naturally against the backdrop of this land. They do not stand out the way she does. Then again, she stands out even at home, albeit differently. Perhaps she would stand out anywhere, a sootmarked soul, a betrayer from birth. They could smell it on her, like charred wood. She does not say these things. Instead, she murmurs, " I do not believe I heard thy name? "
Perhaps… perhaps her god is smoothing her path, as the hares trample the prairie grass smooth. Perhaps she walks down a path of light. No, she thinks instantly, stepping weary through the entrance to this 'camp', you are a fallen-away cat, never forget, a sinner and the worst of them. She still does not know why she has not atoned. There has been time, and plenty of occasion.
Instead, she is picking her way through sleeping cats to one of the northward burrows. The moon is high, and she is dusty and pawsore with a day of hunting. Failure and failure, and finally success. She is not so adept at hunting her new quarry, but perhaps she can learn. Her first prize is clamped between her teeth tight enough to sow bloodless wounds.
" Child, " she says in a low whisper, around the rabbit, peering into the den. They are asleep, looking surprisingly peaceful. She does not know why she had expected otherwise… they are beyond the land of midnight prayers. She does not know why she came here at all.
She does know she is not alone. Wide, deer-round eyes lift to meet the chained visage of the first one to welcome them, mismatched eyes twinkling in the low evening light. " Thou art watching over them? " she murmurs, setting the hare down with infinite care. On a hoarse exhale, she admits, " …I am glad of it. "
Her claws twitch in their sheaths. She glances at the child, set naturally against the backdrop of this land. They do not stand out the way she does. Then again, she stands out even at home, albeit differently. Perhaps she would stand out anywhere, a sootmarked soul, a betrayer from birth. They could smell it on her, like charred wood. She does not say these things. Instead, she murmurs, " I do not believe I heard thy name? "
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