Blackfoot Forest take heart, arise, he is calling for you

the darkness was not new to her. it was not welcome, either. hosannah would come to understand it. it was an unavoidable aspect of this dreary place -- oh! but this cave was quite expansive. the room adjoining the entry was like a set of lungs - wide, arching, and the deeper she went the more air she could hear within. there was a very dull howling in the back of the cave; had she any sense, hosannah would have understood this to be the pressure difference being constantly corrected between the surface and whatever lay below — but she was mindless, especially about earthly things. this was the first cave she had ever visited. not even the holy places of the priests spoke to her like this!

as she crept deeper, inquisitive to the extreme, a voice carried to her through the stale breeze; she thought someone was greeting her. the woman paused, her head tilting one way, then the other, and back again. her ears barely moved. when no further sound came to her, she drummed up some courage and called out herself: hello -- is someone there? but of course someone was there! perhaps it was the daystar made corporeal? if only she were so blessed!