The Sentinels it is ours to hold the banner, is ours to hold it long

a dream had roused her, but upon waking she had begun The Forgetting of it. but there was a beauty to the thing she had seen within her head, and when deirdre stirred she sought it without reservation. it was, perhaps, the first thing she had done without fear since the fateful day the ogre of a woman had come well past their doorstep. truthfully, as she thought of it, deirdre felt no fear of her evil at all. she wandered deeper into the forest, her eyes tracing the forest that sang as she moved through it. deirdre, our daughter, our beloved, she felt she heard the wind sing. and then! the phosphorous light that did glimmer came to her again, and deirdre turned to bound after it. the moment she felt she would capture it, the floating flame disappeared, but returned again as the wind laughed and tousled her furs. deirdre moved more warily after it, now, until the flower her mind had conjured in its dreams was found just beyond the path it had ceased in making. deirdre moved gingerly toward it, feeling safe as she looked to its flavescent center, as though all the ill she had seen in the terrible face of the cruel woman directed toward her was gone. deirdre stood a little taller without knowing it, her muscles relaxed, the negativity she had clung to the past few weeks beginning to unravel. the world was strangely quiet, but she felt shielded and safe.

He had been watching her from above, quietly, not making himself apparent to her again. But her pull was too much for him to avoid entirely, and so he lurked. Sometimes the babe would look up to the very place he lingered, but she would say not a word to him and would move on. It was enough to keep him there for a while, before he took wing and sought her again. The owl was enamored with the child, for she was the loveliest thing he had ever looked upon, her beauty awing him more than meeting his own children for the first time had. She was truly a witch! For all birds sang for her so that she might look their way! And he, the great, wise owl and the one who had been told all felt envious when she did...

The owl was a fool, and he knew it. But he had been tasked with this, and would dutifully complete this task before ever giving way to such trivial matters. The elder, the vessel, felt that all would endure this misery when they understood that they could never have her, and so at least he would not be alone in that.

He spotted her as he lurked beneath the canopy, and he tilted his wings to increase his elevation so that he would not be seen. Only when she stopped did he stop, himself; he had not seen what she had seen, too concentrated upon her to take heed of anything else. He circled above her until he found what she looked upon, and then he could avoid her no more. His answer, his sign, had come!

With the downward tilt of wings he descended to the nearest tree, landing upon a low-set branch that was stable beneath his weight. "The witch has found the Cinder Flower," he informed, adjusting his feathers so that they lay flat upon him. "No creature that has wished ill of you with but their eyes will find you, for the Cinder offers protection. Even their words and their totems would effect you not." The creature tilted his proud head and watched her with inspecting eyes.

the witch continued to look upon the flower, the woods speaking to her, singing to her with a clarity she had ignored in her days of terror. always had she heard the song, for it played on and on; it had been a comforting lullaby, once, and next it had terrorized her. but it had never been the forests doing, she understood. for it was not an evil thing, even when evil had come to grip it and tear one of its most precious budding flowers from it. she felt she understood this, now, though certainly not to such a resounding extent. safe, you are safe... none can see you...

except when someone could! she heard his gentle wingbeat. the creature was always present. deirdre had known of its watching, and though she had desired to speak with the being who called themselves 'we', she maintained her silence that had lasted some days since tachyon had gone. the girl did not wish to speak to anyone but him, but his disappearance wounded her, and this one seemed to know things that she did not understand. i have seen this flower before, in a dream—last night, she shared this with him in her sweet voice, her accented tones filling the air as she thought of his own voice, and its low resonance that hung heavy.

The owl listened to her voice, which was a song in itself; it was hard, truly, to understand what it was she said. Forest nymph, queen of them!, within her. He was deviled by her, and she did not even know such a thing. But understood the creature did, and after a thoughtful, contemplative pause the large owl spoke. Then it knew that you had need of it. Look upon the earth, and tell me what you see. In his flight, he knew there were many of these flowers within these woods. But this one could very be the one of her dreams, as he knew they worked in mysterious way, and that she and the forest shared one beating heart. He felt its beat as he stood within the tree, and he had seen its cadence in her graceful step. The oldest forest of all, he believed, was in her, too; he recognized it in her every breath, could see it in her every passing glance. He could not invoke The Old Memories; he must be patient, and wait for the forest to truly awaken her.