Greatwater Lake No peace for the wicked

In time Zharille's hormones adjusted, her body thinned at the hips so that she was the hulking cube she had been prior to pregnancy, and any interest she held for those offspring evaporated. A cold descended across her lake; it felt as if the chill of her spirit expanded to encompass the world, beginning at the whelping den and spreading to every corner of what she claimed as her own.

Whatever sickness, whatever instinctive refusal had consumed her these past few months, now it passed. Her children were gone—taken to the desert place, to live enslaved, in the way of their father. That had been the bargain struck, and Zharille would not dwell upon the loss openly. She had never claimed a mother's prowess, and never showed love to any of those born to Greatwater. It mattered little now; she was alone, utterly.

Drawn from her proverbial hibernation—first by the repetitive requirements of hunger, thirst, waste removal, and the like—Zharille had begun to again patrol the lake's periphery. It was during one of these languishing walks that she saw the glimmer of something steely-silver staring at the expanse of the water.

Gathering herself, she lurked; she watched, and prowled, and said nothing as she gained ground. Powerful as she had once felt, the ogre-woman knew she could not adequately enforce her claim. Besides that, she was (in her dull, slow-as-molasses brain), curious about the stranger idling here.