Falls

Something was different.

The hare remained where its last breaths had left it, a husk emptied of the life it’d once held. That much was familiar to Mirri: the glassiness of its gaze, the unconditional surrender of its muscles and sinews. Her black demon’s body had slumped forward the same way. As if the pull of gravity had suddenly become greater; as if the earth was seeking to swallow the still figure. (And it had, in the end. She’d returned to the place of her birth, fascinated by the pale stones that had risen in the place of dark flesh.) No, it wasn’t the creature or its passage that was different. It was everything else. The world did not fall silent or still this time, but instead thrummed with a new sort of energy. With a sense of expectation.

Are you a ghost?

The child’s breath expelled itself in a sound best described as an unmelodious squawk. Her awkwardly-thin body swung around reflexively to face the unknown threat, small hooves dangerously close to the object of her fascination. It was only with a sharp correction that she managed to avoid kicking the ragdolled figure, though she still disturbed its peaceful equilibrium with a cry of despair that would have been comical in any other situation. “Oh, bugger!” The white filly hissed, knowing that her vigil would be pointless now. She could never be certain of any differences between this one and the last; what if her own intervention had caused them?

All of this played out over the span of mere seconds: a longer moment than it had taken to seal the hare’s fate, but far shorter than it had taken for it to die. Yet for Mirri, the hare and its death were abruptly forgotten, the warm reminder of its fur against one leg ignored. Because by now, the initial shock of hearing that soft voice had yielded to the sharp hunger of her curiosity. Ghost, the other had said — a word that the shaman’s daughter had heard spoken only once before: when she’d been found beside the bones of her mother. Shoving Mirri sharply away (and the leopard-girl had never been rough with her, not before and not after), Tabaxi had warned her of ghosts — dark spirits that might linger wherever death was found.

“ ‘m no ghost,” the child answered haughtily, though there was a wavering note beneath the certainty of her voice. The dark woman had died in the same place and moment where her memory began. Perhaps she was a ghost. Perhaps that was what had drawn her here to this place, to the death of the small creature straddled between her two front legs. Glancing down at the hare — and then back up at her companion — a sudden connection was made. Mirri’s dark eyes narrowed in suspicion, and her curved ears flicked backwards.

“How do I know that you’re not a ghost?” She accused, taking a step back as if afraid that the condition might be catching.