Fairspell Meadow trying to find tomorrow and ease in, til you dive in

i saw this thread was archived so i pulled it out so i could wrap it up -- no worries at all, i just needed to conclude this so a future post makes sense! <3

the mat of clay broke open. within it something was nestled like a filthy pearl.

teeth. little archways. a pocket of hollows.

a chipmunk skull whose voice rose to a deafening roar.

qiao lifted the thing from the snow, wide eyed as around her malignant voices climbed to the sky. the man was thoroughly forgotten -- it was just qiao and this taotaomona now, whose frothy voice sung out in a perverse tongue like whiplash.

* * *

she was transported somewhere -- to somewhen. sun beat down in ruthless pylons. bittersweet birdsong filled her ears. somewhere close by, perhaps beyond fronds of tropic ferns, sighed the unmistakable breath of the ocean.

a man rose from her vision. at first, qiao thought it was robespierre. but no, this man was sharp and murderous. a black glint like offal-blood in his gaze. he was filthy, grinning -- his fur doused in mud.

no, not mud. blood.

and he was holding the skull with an imp's foul smile; offering it to a svelte war-trim figure in black. qiao's attention sharpened to the woman -- and it was then the voices rose in crowsong around her and she was pulled back with a sharp crrrrrrak.

* * *

qiao's eyes opened to a world of cold and snow. robespierre's figure swam in her vision. hastily, the seer unbuckled her greenbrier. the skull was shoved into the folds of the deerpelt, still rimed in decay and dirt.

qiao was shaking as she doused her torc. "i must go." she offered little else before she set at a blistering pace east.

the skull thrummed against her chest.