The Sentinels in the darkening of the year

she had not been far from her fathers grave. she could feel the breath of death, but it was not so terrible as it had been on the day that the mayfair patriarch had been taken from them. it had come to take its harvest, and deirdre watched much of what she had grown fall into a wintersleep. it is not the killing blow, she heard the wind whisper as the reapers scythe brushed o'er the heads of her flowers, they will keep warm beneath the earth, as the bears would; they will return! and on this day, the day so recently near to their passing, she imagined the song of all of the dead coming to her with the autumn wind.

her sisters summons was heeded by the witch queen, who moved through the wood silently, slowly. she had betwixt her lips dried herbs to offer those that had passed and for those that lingered. she carried also with her a small wreath that the birds had fashioned for her; autumnal things lined it, and it was but a small trinket that expressed the devotion of the woodfolk. these she placed near the alter emaleth had created, and then moved to stand alongside her. deirdre's emerald eyes were warm, but she kept to her silence. this eve, emaleth would lead this ritual--her younger sister harbored no doubts in her heart toward her sisters power, that had been, until now, obscured, by her sisters own will, to others.