人 knuckle children swag [t][p]

[|星雲|]

Rot grubs near the base of a rock tor; fat from moss, jaundiced in the sun, salty. She moved. Headed North once out of the village and avoided the borders of Fang Country to the East. Plague-towns and shanty-house ruins blurred into a black smear while she chewed. She conversed briefly with the chattering cetacean intelligences worked into the thin liquid net lining the only hidden path to the coastline.

Monolith-crabs and thrallfish crept along a corpse and scavenged hair and maggots while she looked down, overtaken by the smell. She reached the water. Nose crinkled. Lungs greedy to be beneath the flat of horizon garishly obscuring the other world she belonged to. Under the surface a vibration shook her membrane like old bones in winter.

She walked, or swam, or rode currents of warm water and air that pushed her forward; the clumsy hands of volcanic vents moving her inexorably to a new place. She had foregone the relative comfort of the village for a moment, just a moment, because she had a responsibility. She had to send a message.

She headed slowly but surely Northwest, beneath the dark ocean skin of the world, to Earth Country.

|move to tsuchi no kuni|