now that there was no more need for travel, dinah spiraled quickly into agonizing hyperactivity.
there was nothing else for her to do. she had quickly begun to familiarize herself with rivenwood, sometimes with the aid of ava as her co-pilot. she explored, she decorated; determined, absolutely, to make this alien land feel like home. her hunting skills had improved greatly, though there was little in the way of prey this time of year. she did what she could no less. always busy, always going, always — distracted. and when the light of day fell below the mountaintops, dinah spent her evenings counting the speckled stars from between the trees.
today marked the first excursion beyond noctisardor's sanction since the redhawks had arrived. she needed to find flowers. the flowers made her feel sane. and though the hope for finding blooms beneath endless banks of heavy, powdered white was slim, the mere idea of them being there was enough to keep her going.

dinah kept her nose shoved into the snow until the cold made the tip feel prickly. when she snuffled, a billowing cloud bursted into the air. she pawed at a sheltered spot beneath a tall pine, and in the dirt she found nothing but roots and crushed, disintegrated leaves.
her disappointment was immeasurable.
frustration quickly began to fester. the one thing, the one thing that could make her feel normal, make any of this feel okay, and there was nothing to show for it, and — fuuuuuuuuuuuuck!
she wanted to cry. she wouldn't let herself. she trudges forward, now with a renewed sense of hopelessness, and only then did she notice the flash of midnight that flew toward coverage just as soon as she'd looked up. there was someone else here. fear paralyzed her into standing still.
i know you're here, the girl shouts, forcing confidence into her tone. show yourself.

this girl again?
flustered, dinah reels backward. what the hell was she doing out here? had she followed them out here? there was no space left within her for tolerance, and there had not been in a long time.
and of course she knew the fuck word! she was towhee's granddaughter! but this bitch didn't need to know that.
don't you have a hippie commune to get back to? her eyes narrow to slits as her nails rake into the padded snow. if you've come here just to make fun of me again, you can shove it up your ass. she had gotten enough of that from malakai.

this girl whom dinah still lacked a name for was, unfortunately, kind of funny. the redhawk found herself biting back a chuckle. she wanted to kick herself. it was the first time a laugh had naturally come to her in months.
it's hard to think you're not stalking me when you were watching me from behind the trees. her words came more languid now, less defensive — almost playful. perhaps this girl meant no harm; perhaps dinah could let her guard down again.
the slip of the word pretty from the wayward hippie brought a funny feeling to the pit of dinah's stomach. why had she called her that? no one but her parents had ever called her that. whatever helps you sleep at night.
var-sheen? blinking, dinah slowly shakes her head no. i don't know what a, um, var-sheen is. i live in rivenwood now.

oh, yeah, sure, dinah purls. i totally believe you. you're definitely not a stalker.
but admittedly, she'd rather have this dimwitted mainlander breathe down her neck than have john condescendingly remind her that god loves her, and so she may as well stay. she leans her shoulder nonchalantly against the trunk of an old spruce, though the suspicion in her posture does not fade.
the pearl. she still had it with her, for some reason. i, um, it's in my personal collection now. with some other stuff i took with me when we moved. there were other things she had left behind. she hadn't had the time to grab everything that once belonged to judah, and her gut twists at the thought of dust and stagnant air settling.
she almost mentions him. my dead brother and i used to collect them. the words sit at the back of her tongue. thank you, by the way. for the pearl. it's prettier than anything i could've found myself.
there was nothing but ghosts left on the isle.

mae frostfur-mayfair. it sounded foreign, that name, in a way dinah couldn't describe. it didn't suit the scrappy, rough-and-tumble nature that she saw; but she supposed she didn't look much like a godly girl herself anymore. i'm, um, i'm dinah. dinah redhawk.
why'd you scream? ah — you heard that? of course she had. mae hadn't thought dinah knew the fuck word. her face floods with the warmth of embarrassment. i, uh, i'm a botanist. i wanted to go learn about the native plants around here, until i realized it's-- there's snow. the flowers are all dead, her laugh echoes and only solidifies the awkwardness of it all. i guess i could study the trees, but they're all kinda... the same tree. so. i don't know.

poisons? dinah asks, a brow furrowing. like, toxic plants? why would you wanna know about those?
she had always liked the simple beauty of the natural world, the one god built. it was so perfectly balanced in a way that was impossible for earthly beings to fully grasp. there were so many different kinds of flora, so many different animals, different rocks and sea creatures —
and yet all of that beauty had been ripped from her mercilessly.
i don't really know, i've never thought about it much, honestly, she asked herself the same question now. she so rarely picked flowers for herself, always others; always others who were now — maybe lavender. on the isle, there was this, like, huge field of lavender flowers.
she nearly chokes on the waver of her voice, the sudden drop of her stomach: my daddy loved them too.