Sunset Valley The Silent Sisters

Was it fortunate that Ghenaya's eyes and ears had opened merely days before the chaos? She had seen the shapes of giants all around; not quite corporeal due to her young eyes, but these nearly shapeless, gargantuan things with gleaming teeth and storming voices. A shadow had swept in close and with rapidity Ghenaya had been taken.

There was the chaos of shouting voices, of tugging, of pinching, of teeth, teeth, teeth—and then there was the calm after the storm. A woman had been there. She was young, she was pale. She reminded Ghenaya of her brightest brother—and that was soothing to her spirit, although not to the body which she inhabited.

It hurt to be held. Oh, how she cried! Her voice had been withered by the time the starlight woman had come to take her from the storm—but still, Ghenaya hurt, and so she cried in that uncontrollable way inherent to children. Up, and down, and up, and onward—she squirmed at first, punching the air with what strength she retained, or trying to fight for her freedom even from her rescuer, until they slept in the open air.

And when she woke again, exhausted and voiceless and no longer fighting, Ghenaya was hoisted up once again to be carried. The starlight woman was full of vigor which seemed to be sapped from the little girl bundled in her teeth. There was such joy to Other Shore—but something different to Ghenaya, being so thoroughly worn down by it all.

She would not have recognized any of the bodies gathered, not in this state.