Hearthwood River you'd see that - we should never be afraid to die

The second shadow had confused her at first. The sky was empty of clouds, and with a blazing sun overhead, the ground was bathed in sunlight, interrupted only by the tall trees which were always there. Bennet had found an open space where none of the trees' were in the way of the sun, where the still air was warm and sleepy. The longer she stood in it, the hotter she got all the way down her spine, but she ignored that growing discomfort for the sake of studying her own shadow, which she suddenly noticed when glancing down at her feet and realising that the ground looked different to the sun-bright grass all around her.

The revelation had entertained her for some time as she tested it, but her understanding had been dashed when suddenly another, much fuzzier shadow appeared and passed straight over her. Surprised and confused, the child had looked about but had not been able to make sense of it. Just as she had begun wondering if it was real, it happened a second time, the shadow rushing across the ground right in front of her. This time, she chased it, but upon reaching the line of shadow cast by the trees, it promptly vanished, and she was left bemused once more.

Stumbling back into the centre, Bennet kept a close eye out for its reappearance, determined to get to the bottom of it this time. Catching sight of it out of the corner of her eye, she pounced upon the now-still shadow, and to her bewilderment nothing happened. Her own shadow melded with it to no result - no change, she couldn't feel it at all. Blinking, she stared at her feet where the shadow lingered, watching how its edges flickered and how it seemed to change shape, not understanding it, she didn't pursue it when it lazily drifted off again.

With tiny wheels turning furiously inside her head as she tried to make sense of it, Bennet stood transfixed on the spot, eyes glazed over as she stared at where the shadow had been only moments ago. Suddenly, a faint, shrill cry somewhere far above her cut through her concentration, and finally provoked her into glancing up.

From all the way down here, and with weak eyes peering into a bright sky, she could barely see anything - but then spotted a tiny dark shape, and something in the back of her mind clunked into place. Small tail perking up and starting to wag, she squinted up at the shadow-maker in the sky and yipped her own enthusiastic reply. A grin spread from ear to ear as she earned another faint skyward screech, but the child chose not to cry out again, content with the notion of establishing a connection with the thing which was so far beyond herself.

She watched the shape move effortless and lazily across the sky, squinting against the sun but determined to watch the mysterious shadow-maker as long as possible. Bennet stared, the stories of dragons ticking over in the back of her head, and in her mind's eye the shadow-maker was one of those elegant and magnificent beasts, that distinct but distant silhouette another piece of information she had with which to start visualising the myths. The snake had been another. The dragon was being built, bit by bit.

Oblivious to the concept of danger, she would likely not have heeded any warnings anyway, but she was fortunate that the eagle had no interest in her beyond its own idle amusement in teasing her with its shadow. Now utterly enraptured and convinced of what she was seeing, Bennet inhaled and exhaled evenly, calm, confident in this moment's significance. Of course she was safe. She was a dragon, too.

What would it feel like to have wings? Imagining stretching them out to either side, her little black tail wagged with an almost slow, intense pleasure, and as the eagle cried out one last time and turned towards the mountain in the distance, she whispered: "Fly."

(This post was last modified: Aug 10, 2016, 10:22 AM by Bennet.)