A crescent moon was the last thing she saw, falling asleep in the room with the empty, broken window panes. The falcon-faced girl was still for a while, then her naturally dark eyelids started to flicker frantically. A dream face, grey furred and old eyed, spoke words of hatred. A fence moved inwards, until it was near enough to see the birds spiked on the wire barbs.
Caspa woke with an uncharacteristic whimper and lay panting. She had been uneasy lately; the winds seemed unfavourable. She had been sleeping unevenly since the pack meeting, which had held more than one anxiety. The announcement of a mysterious death, and the forced proximity to the man whose presence she had fled so ignominiously, drunken and awkward, and she'd both hoped he hadn't given her another thought since, and that he hadn't written her off as a lunatic. And she didn't want to think about it at all, anyway.
She rubbed her eyes, wearier than before sleeping. Noticing her fingers, she sighed. They were spindly - spidery. She had been spending too much time retreating into trances, and not enough taking care of herself, grounding herself in reality. Hardly eating, like a fool. Her birds would begin to lay in a few months, which would provide extra food, but she knew really that it was finding the time and inclination to eat that was hard. She found it so much easier to gain that sensation of ethereal spaciousness during meditation, so hard to describe but such a peaceful relief, with an empty stomach. And she loved the way her focus had improved since learning to concentrate her mind. She could juggle five separate objects now, and throw stones and knives very accurately. But real answers or enlightenment she had not found - nor was she entirely sure what the questions were.
October early hours were steely with cold, and she hugged a grey shawl close as she left the hotel, some of her plaits loose beside her face from the rough night's sleep. A pale gradient had begun to fade into the night sky and she followed it to a cove of soft grass and shallow cliffs, leading down to a crescent of surf, crowned with a chalky boulder which Caspa settled herself upon, crossing her legs and breathing deep. Her head was spinning, light. Silhouetted against the dawn she closed her eyes, and the earth fell away, leaving only silence.
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