Foggy Bottom Way [m] el mar

the pain was immense and burned away all lasting notion of sanity. silvertongue saw germanicus as through the shadows of trees. darkened. gold. starlight, until he was crowfeather and himself both, shuddering between jagged images until she could take it no longer and struck. blood filled her mouth, and she drank it in greedy gasps from where she was pinned to the churned earth. and then blackness, at once, at once, merciful in its sudden nature.

***

she would awake to them gone, rain pattering down; her eyes would close again.

***

a second time, to fury, to agony, to the helplessness of one hind-leg. it would not move. she would not move. a scream of anger downed silvertongue into the bleak bog of senseless once more.