If Adna could, she would have flung herself from this land years ago and never came back.
She would have gladly taken to the skies and never looked back—never thought twice (this part is untrue, and she knows it). But she is not a bird. She is a viper and she is earthbound. She is belly-first and tied to the mud and the dust and the land that will always anchor her. So although she has left Loess and the poison on her tongue, she has not left Beqanna—and, in a strange way, it is for the best.
After all, if she had left, she would not have Gospel.
She would not have met Beth.
Even if she is not sure whether or not the latter is a good thing or not.
But whether she thinks it or not, she cannot change the fact that she is here now and is firmly rooted, whether or not she thinks she should be. She walks through the meadow, quiet and subdued for once, when she sees the creature leap from the tree and turn equine in a flash of feather. Her serpentine eyes widen just a little and she pauses, a scaled leg lifted and then firmly planted back on the earth.
For a second, she remains that way—contemplative and curious—before she angles herself back toward the area where the mare now stands. The wind bites but she has long known that the cold does not bother her and she bites back the ache in her bones. When she is close enough to hear the other, she just stops. She watches her with sage green eyes calm, her fanged mouth closed into just a shadow of a smile.
“It’s cold today,” she muses, her fine head angling before she rolls a shoulder.
“Do you not have somewhere more comfortable to roost?”
ADNA