10-15-2017, 09:02 AM
 i'll use you as a makeshift gauge of how much to give and how much to take
Watching from the safety of distance, Ivar’s eyes trace the swarm of bats up into the navy sky. The spiral there for a moment, like a flock of birds, and then, with no visible signal, they separate. Each heads in its own direction, and the chatter of their echolocating voices eventually fades away. A few stay nearby, emitting little peeps as they hunt the powder-winged moths, but it is difficult to track them against the darkness. When his attention leaves the sky, he realizes he has lost the teal filly. She is no longer standing where he’d last seen her, and for a brief moment he entertains the possibility that she might have pulled a Karaugh and flown off with the bats. But then he hears her, asking a question across the distance, and he steps forward to see that she stands in the mouth of the cave. Ivar moves closer, following her gaze into the yawning mouth of the cavern, and then glances down to her. There was something in the way she’d asked if he’s been inside, something in the eagerness of her expression. She’s going to ask to go inside, he just knows it. “No,” he tells her honestly, “You can’t see it now, but it gets narrow in the back. Even sunlight doesn’t reach all the way back during the day.” That should be enough to dissuade her, Ivar thinks, surely a child won’t want to go stumbling around in the darkness of a cave with no visible end. |