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Slowly, cautiously, you edge your hand back down towards the shard of moonlight in your pocket. You’re not sure if you’re ready to play that particular card just yet, but you take some faint reassurance from knowing it’s there. “You were not the only thing that heard my father’s calls,” you say, hoping to keep the woman distracted, “Something else heard him. Do you know of the Stryx?”
[We have heard their cries coming from the Outside spaces,] the woman answers, her voice softening somehow. The words she speaks are still strange, so much so that you’re not even sure how you might copy them down on paper, but their harshness eases slightly. Her eyes seem to brighten, too, their gold hue shimmering. [You deserve none of this,] she continues, her words hinting at a kind of sadness, [These sins are not your own, but you will bear their weight.]
Vague, always so vague!
[Their cries tell a story. They call out for what they have lost. Once they brought offerings to their gods, but now only silence answers them,] she continues, idly stroking your hair as she talks, [Their gods were taken from them, but they do not understand that. They know only desperate yearning, and insatiable hunger.]
“Can…” the question seems to catch in your throat, “Can they be stopped?”
[In their cities at the end of time, the old masters still ask this question. Yet only one of their number searches for an answer,] her eyes grow hazy here, reminding you of the oracle’s art,
Her words seem to whirl through your mind, promising answers only to flit away before you can seize them. How can you even be sure that what she’s telling you is the truth?
The truth…
“I need to see what you really are,” you warn the woman slowly, slipping your hand into your pocket, “I mean you no harm, but I must know the truth. Don’t-”
Your words are cut off by a gasp of pain as her hand snaps back down, clawing at your wrist and forcing the shard of moonlight back into hiding. This time you fight against her grip, though she has a strength beyond anything her soft figure would suggest. Her strength starts to slacken after a brief struggle, not from any weakness but rather a sense of resignation. She releases your wrist, turning her face away from yours as you finally bring out the shard of moonlight.
What you see in that pale, bluish light causes a cry of alarm to escape your lips. Started by the sound, the woman recoils and scuttles backwards into the shelter of the dense, gnarled trees. She turns back one last time before fleeing, piercing you with eyes that now burn with red.
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