Meadow

The world had changed overnight, or that’s how it felt. Gone from brilliant greens to a dull copper. She could smell winter on the air.

Death was coming for them all, she knew, and the seasons only proved it each time they turned from one to another. Glenna had seen so much death. Her mother had told her she would always be attuned to it, knowing when it was near—she had the gift, after all, in the form of a singular blue eye. With her blue eye, she could predict lifespans and measure heartbeats, her mother had said she was blessed from Mother Earth.

But there were times when Glenna didn’t feel blessed, she felt cursed. She had left her homeland because she felt drawn elsewhere, then she landed upon these islands, and now she can’t help to wonder how those around her might feel about her gift. How they would look on her, not understanding the ways of the Clan where she came from.

Glenna stood in the meadow quiet and still as stone. Her great, pearly frame brilliant in the blazing sun above her head. The day was hot but the skies were clear, blue as the eye set into the right side of her head.