Dragoncrest Cliffs -- tricks, tools, joy

@Hux !

It was not like her to make so many mistakes.

She had found her way to the edges of the border by nightfall to identify the plants in Drageda's furthest reaches and come across something deadly disguised as something harmless.  The shade had bent to inspect the plant and the next thing she knew — in her mind, at least — she couldn't breathe.  It was a sensation she would later describe as crushing, like the ocean had been dumped on top of her and breath came to her in shallow bursts as her muscles pulled taut, causing her to kick feebly at the ground.

Corva had always returned to the cliffs of Drageda by morning, fear had kept her from roaming too far when daylight stole her vision.

Shortly after the sun rose the hallucinations began, a cruel un-reality that nearly made her believe she could see once more.  Corva nearly thought they were visions until it was the past she was reliving and it was herself she saw, cast out and unbearably alone after the death of her family.

She took the strength she had to raise her maw to the air and screamed, spilling the grieved contents of her lungs into the open air — an unintelligible, throaty noise of fear and remorse.  It was a loud form of ugly-crying, of weakness that if she were sound of mind she would be ashamed of.

It was her only hope that nobody would hear.