dreaming through the noise

She times the jump perfectly, bark scraping across the soles of her feet as she skids to a halt across upper branches. The snorts of a desperate hart echoe below her, giving away its position long enough to notch and loose an arrow, embedding deep in its hide a second behind another, travelling from the opposite direction to pierce the neck. 

With a hiss of defeat, Iselas drops down the branches to the forest floor, approaching the beast of venery in a few playful bounds. The two puncture wounds keep it from getting up, so Iselas crouches beside it. “You win,” she says to the trees, only able to guess where her kin hides amongst them. “Again,” she adds with a grin. Her hand hovers over the arrow in the hart’s neck. “How long were you waiting for me to shoot?” 

The Beyond tells her of the stranger’s presence before her senses do. Crouched amongst the underbrush, a cautious hand settles over her dagger as she observes him. The forest does not attack him, as it would any other who wandered through it. Decisively, she steps out, aggression wavering in favour of her curiosity. “Andaran atish’an, tel'vhen,” she greets, tone clipped with implied warning.

            comes with the power to be

                                         M E R C I L E S S.