The Sentinels the breeze it wrapped around me, as I stood there on the shore

she knew, now, all; she even knew that she would forget all that she knew if she kept this path, but deirdre understood that, too, and so as she looked to the man it was the only thing she could think of. it was a tumultuous affair, but she betrayed none of the pain her heart felt then. when The Giver came near, all of her thoughts seemed to stop, in fact. as she looked to him, deirdre had the strangest moment of recognition, the mildest form of deja vu, and she evinced the thought to him in a sharpening gaze—like, for the first time, she truly did see him—and projected unto him the thought of knowing, and the conviction that came with it; the tilt of her head asked of him, don't you know me? but the moment passed, fleeting, stolen, disallowed by the spirits who did not, themselves, know how she had found the thought to grab at! but now, truly, they gutted it from her, so it would not influence her one way or the other. it was like never knowing the thing at all. and do you know how quick the moment occurred? in the span of milliseconds! too easy to miss, if one blinked in between the span of it.

old, infinitely old! and back to the task at hand, the deciding.

her muzzle dragged over the short length of her soft foreleg, dark eyes falling to emaleth. what would be her decision? one way or the other they were connected; in the beginning, deirdre was influenced much by her doings. deirdre was tempted to ask, tempted to rely on her for this, too, but knew that it was one thing she could not, would not do. their souls were on the same plane, yes, but would they board the next one together when that layover came? deirdre would not let emaleth know what her not doing so would do, unwilling to cause the dominoes to fall in a way unmeant.

deirdre leaned into his affectionate gesture, neck craning as her tail moved. deirdre could no longer be morose over things if she wanted to discover what she must do; so instead, deirdre stood and bumbled toward him. i want to show you what i know! deirdre spoke eagerly, the words untranslatable to his adult ear; but he could see, like she could see, and so she drew again all that she loved. she drew the three of them, she and emaleth drawn as one thing (she did not know herself to be an individual), and then around them she swept lines. around the thing that represented her and emaleth, deirdre drew more lines.

of course the whole thing was blurs and lines and not at all a masterpiece; it was definitely the art of a child, and very hard to depict. but what she knew was this world here, and also, there was more to draw, that this was not it, there was more! but deirdre looked up to her father, pleased with her current work; after all, she could translate it with ease, being its artist. and emaleth, too, would look on it and know. the lines of the spirits that hung thinly and thickly around them, varying in size, varying in strength. around her father there were also a great many lines; in fact, the scribbled thing looked almost like the sun. it was curious, that. and she had known why for a moment, but it had been taken from her, and there was no questioning of it; there was only the awareness that it was there, that it surrounded them.

it was lightest around her mother; more like eyes simply watching, without desire to intervene, hovering benignly above. it all looked like nonsense, but her lips curled into a smile as she watched him, leaning upon the scaffold of a lean leg; to her, it was priceless knowledge. us! she babbled delightedly, the sound coming from her for him to here as a short bb! sound.