Blackfoot Forest and the colors drift from you into me, and the wonder of the moment rescued me

more than ok! your writing is perfectly lovely! no need to match length, i ramble

tongue midway into another pass over the bark, a noise captivated the audience of her ears. like the pule of a cub -- but all the cubs she knew (of) were tucked safely into their dens, far away from this place. 

perturbed, the girl curled herself 'round the tree to look, anticipating the austere face of her father when she peeked around. 

but there was nothing -- nothing that she could make sense of through the scrim of daylight left, anyway.  

she didn't realize how dark it had gotten until the possibility of not being alone visited inimical things upon her mind. phaedra was, in a moment, profoundly aware of this solitude. her pulse took fright, thrumming in her ears as her eyes careered across the glade.

the combination of wild imagination and shadow-play made grotesqueries of otherwise innocent things. easily, a squirrel climbing a tree became a golem; passing deer turned into dybbuks looking for maidenly souls to ransom. what made it worse still was the part where she didn't know what manner of fresh hell was about to gobble her up.

go for launch: the qualification stage of grief. she weighed her odds, going by stratum. hastily, she decided she could probably take on a limbo demon. punching down, you know? easier. like, she could deal with a sower of discord. that was her territory. she was in good company there. 

but if this was some bullshit from hell's penetralia, that honest-to-dante belly of the beast "hi, welcome to hell! compulsory vexilla regis prodeunt inferni. mr reagan will give you the tour shortly" type bs? it really didn't bear thinking about. 

ugh. she'd even made herself smell like a mushroom broth. 

her eyes squinted at a shadow shifting a few yards away. "hello? er, who's out there?" she called out, mastering the tremor in her voice despite feeling a terrible lack of courage.

it seemed to get darker by the moment. phaedra felt herself wince, the regret of underscoring her position cutting through her like a cold wind.