all these voices in my head get loud
i wish that i could shut them out
i'm sorry that i let you down
Once released by Mazikeen, Anath walks carefully away from the clover patch where she had been playing with her sunlight. She moves down toward the lake, blue and bright, and skirts its pebbled shore before trotting up into the cover of a small copse of trees. There she wedges herself in among sucker-saplings and prickly shrubs and lies down in the rotting leaves with a muted thud. Hidden amongst the bracken she sheds the hot angry tears that had tried to choke her when she learned she would be ousted from Hyaline. Motherless, naive, undesirable Anath does not know what waits for her beyond this high mountain valley… but she knows how it feels to be alone.
Instinct tells her to cry where she cannot be seen, not pride.
Though she could stay there to shiver and sob for hours, she does not have time. She wipes her tear-streaked cheeks on her legs, sniffs, coughs, and shakes her head hard just once. Standing, Anath squeezes her way back out of the bramble. A branch scratches her gold and black cheek, and foxtails stick into her fuzzy pelt. What were the names? Ryatah and Selaphiel. Says Mazikeen’s matter-of-fact voice inside her head. “Ryatah and Selaphiel.” Repeats the girl. ”Ry..a...tahhugh” Snagged on a vine, Anath trips and then kicks free before stumbling out into the open beside the lake. An audible sigh becomes the second name. ”...Selaphiel.”
What exactly is an angel? Mazikeen had included that like it was a part of their distinction. Without a description of angels or of the angels (she had not thought to ask), Anath must choose how she will go about finding one of them. It is not much of a choice, really, find Malik and ask him or ask someone else right away. The forested slopes, lakeshore, and greenspace lie around her in all directions. She will not go back to the meadow where she left Mazikeen. so she listens for sounds of movement in the trees and rakes her green eyes over the lake. Hyaline gets bigger each time she looks.
@Ryatah - This is not what I *was* going to write but it's what came out in the end.