Redtail Rise I am the unreliable narrator of my own story.

He truly did not know what to do with the brief lucidity he had discovered, let alone with the voiceless stranger who stood before him. Its clear enough she's curious and he welcomes the curiosity, welcomes the closing of any distance due to being a physically greedy individual by default, but he doesn't hear an answer and that makes him pout a little bit.

Maybe she wasn't here? Wherever here was.

Oh, where else have I seen willow trees? He asks the air, as if the girl isn't there, since he's not sure.

He turns and studies the horizon one way, then another, turning in sad little circles until he trips himself up; then, he's half-squatting and his tail curls to his belly, more because he's forgotten he has one than for any fearful reason.

Shhh, maybe I can hear their weeping? And he cocks his head sideways, ears up as if there was a voice on the wind—but really there was nothing.