Ouroboros Spine the terrible fire of old regret is honey on my tongue

Doe danced a terrible waltz that moonlit night. She cut swaths through the Spine’s forests, bleached bone white under the moonlight. Her teeth gleamed against the skin of trees, bark shredded from their trunks in wide gouges.

She walked a careening path at the edge of the lake, stopping for a moment to observe the moon. Gentle, calm, sedate with water lapping at her ankles.

Doe’s laugh-. Like a million glass shards piercing her ears

You anger so much, moonwoman.

Matriarch gliding in large circles around Vairë.

Will you suppress your fire forever? circling closer

What will you be, moonwoman? Will you be water? Will you be fire? Will you be moon?

Doe’s pointed teeth

Or are you sunwoman-!

Fire, burning, licking, tearing apart her skin to grow great flaming antlers as the village burned around her-!

Vairë woke with a snap