White-Hot Glass

In the lightning fields, she dances.

Electricity crackles, thick as the trunks of oaks, leaving trails of white-hot glass in the sand.  They bend and sway, a forest of sentinels, eternal, separated by miles but unquestionably sibling.

When they step, so does she.  This is their place; she must show them the respect of the dance.

There’s no sound in the fields, a preternatural quiet.  She can hear her own heartbeat, smell iron in the air.  From many miles, she hears the fall of a footpad on silver leaves.

She dances to survive, restrained, urgent.  The wolf is coming.

Cardamom

There is the smell of cardamom on the air, and a dry, warm night breeze that rushes past her ears.  The petals of the trees glow and sway, and where they drop they leave trails of thin mist in a thousand colours.  It is the most beautiful place she has ever been, and she moves through it as quickly and quietly as her training has made her capable.

A chill is chasing her, licking at her neck.  Her wounded leg has started to throb, distantly.  Eventually, the wolf will catch up to her.  It’s time to start thinking of alternatives.

The Shining Trees

The runner skips across water, ripples spreading from the kiss of her feet.  Something folds out of the night sky and drops with a nightmare screech that registers only as a chill in her spine.  She leaps and turns, throws bright white steel at the darkthing, and it fragments, stutters, lurches.  They tango in the air, but the runner lands and keeps going, leaving broken shadows.

She’s bleeding from a cut across one leg.  The wolf will have her scent.  She picks up the pace.

In the forest ahead, the trees bloom with shining white petals, a second starry sky.