Meadowlark Prairie My body is a sacred note.

An uproar began. It kept him stationary - not the surprise that might've flared within his heart, not the desire to run or the instinct to fawn before the solar flare; but something altogether different. He turned his good eye towards the stranger just as they disappeared from view. His hip began to throb, and this drew more of the corpse-man's attention once he knew he was alone.

He'd barely turned to inspect the intricacies of the healed lacerations there, along his lower back and his legs, when another explosion of sound drew him sleepily forward-facing again. His empty socket met Bridget first, then the glowing sphere of iris with its pinpoint pupil.

She was a streak of light. An ember, fallen from the sky. In his mind she burned all that she touched to ruin: but it wasn't soot that trailed in her wake, only shadow. Not that he could tell the two substances apart. Black, oozing.

A slow, cat-like blink finally interrupted his stare.