SYLVI
A mid-spring cold snap had descended on the Crossing, and with it a bank of fog that swallowed the youthful green of the landscape in a wall of opaque white. As much as Sylvi normally detested the cold, she relished the dip in temperature, for her swelling body seemed to run at 10,000 degrees, and even the few mildly warm days that spring had introduced had left her ready to shed her skin with the cicadas.
As evening came on, the light of a blood-red sun lit the fog aglow in soft shades of vermillion and lavender. What was still visible of the land was swathed in shadow; clusters of black trees cut through the rosy hues of the fog like ships in a vast, hellish sea. Sylvi felt she was in a dream world as she made her way toward the Falls, her ears pricked for its deep rumbling and the overhead cawing of crows that flocked to roost among its banks. In the poor visibility, familiar paths shifted and twisted and disappeared before Sylvi's eyes altogether, making the journey twice as long as usual.
Then, out of seemingly nowhere, the Falls materialized. Even the water itself glinted red in the dying light of the sun, and the fog pressed in so close that it felt as if she'd entered a hidden world beyond the veil of reality. Sylvi did not often come here, for there was no greater risk of inviting unwanted conversation than at a well-known watering hole, but tonight, in this strange, ethereal blood-world, it seemed she was mercifully alone, and even if someone came along, the shadows seemed to be on her side.
After sating her thirst, Sylvi settled beneath the boughs of a tree along the water's edge and leaned her belly into the solid embrace of its trunk, savoring the sweet release of heavy pressure on her back and pelvis. She cocked one hind leg and let her eyes shutter half-closed, letting the world unfocus so that the dancing sparkles of light on the pond's surface blended into one soft smudge. Above, the trees crawled with black birds on every available branch, but soon the crows' incessant chatter had calmed into a mumble.
Meanwhile, Sylvi tried not to think about how she did not want to be a mother. She tried very hard to think of nothing at all.