Stone Circle Without you

she whispered carefully to the jay on her shoulder, empty gaze settled above and to the right of the stone ring. she fell silent, and the bird began to offer her own sequence of whistles and calls, soft and careful. haezel listened, gaze unshifting, but the simply shadow and light turning to the outlines of stones, of trees, and the jay described what the woman had lost the ability to see long ago. the sterling healer nodded, smile traced out carefully on her face, until the bird trilled a short call of alarm and winged off to the protection of a tree. she hardly required the warning - she could hear his coming as easily as a bear's. 

a great deal had changed for the girl in the past year. she'd learned to see without seeing, to survive in her odd little world of shadow and light, to hone her intuition and other senses. and then she'd found Cee, who had lent her eyes in her travels and in the hunt. she offered her skills in exchange for food and shelter, and the world, as if sensing that it had once been unusually cruel to the girl, was kind.

but she'd returned here, the land of her childhood, for she had seen it more oft than not in her dreams, and knew then that she must return. the monsters of her youth could lay no claw on her, not anymore. and so she found herself here, gaze turned in the direction of the wolf and remaining on his face. practice had brought her that ability, and the healing scars and changing seasons had made her impediment less obvious. "hello," came her airy introduction, lyrically, she added,  "I am Haezel. can you tell me the name of this place?" her jay called from the canopy, and her ear flicked in her direction in response, though her gaze remained on the face of the man before her.