Meadow

She can hear him—she can smell him.

Like ancient oak or crushed acorns, something musky and familiar. Her nostrils widen to breathe him in, one golden ear twitches towards him. Echidna lifts her blocky head. He comes towards her like a phantom, glowing brilliant in the dark. There have been too many ghosts in her life, too many fading things. She remembers.

And then he’s speaking to her. His voice is like the snow, it falls against her, sticking to everything. Echidna lifts her head higher on her short neck, she tips her ears towards him for a moment then back towards the trees where the owl continues to call out—for no one, for nothing at all. Perhaps only for the dark.

“You wouldn’t have enough time to hear them all,” she says. Her voice is low and husky, it is like rock on rock or the cracking of thick ice. Echidna coughs and her whole body trembles. “I think a life lived has finally caught up with me,” she tilts her head towards him and her dark eyes glitter something fierce. Something of who she used to be.