((Author's note: As this site will not preserve more than one break between paragraphs and eliminates nonfunctional punctuation, I'm stuck with using the word "Later." to show where the scenes break.))

She was to sell a hen at the market that day. The plump bird was nestled contentedly in the young girl's arm as she walked briskly along the wagon treads in the tall, green grasses. It was spring and warm, nearly summer, and sweet winds that smellt of apples and strawberries blew in over the broad fields, orchards and shady groves. Under that wind was a faint scent of something rather biological -- manure. The heady, sour grassiness of it was familiar to the girl, however. She'd known that scent her entire life. She never cherished stepping in it, but the sweet dumb animals were forgiven entirely whenever they came to lick her hands and gaze at her beggingly and lovingly.

As she crested a hill, she saw down at the bottom of it was a small group of curious folk in yellow robes. They were babbling amongst themselves and took little notice of her appearance, and so she continued on towards them, wondering how long it would take for them to glance at the girl and her hen.

Finally, a mere few yards away, did they hush and look up at her. One man stepped forward and gave her a hailing wave, but he did not smile. Nor did he frown, for that matter; his face was set and quiet. He was also very handsome, as was all the group. That struck her as odd. It was unusual to find that many persons that lovely at once.

She smiled at them and raised her hand as she came to a stop before them. "Hello, good day," she said with a quirked brow.

"Oh no, dear! Not her!" one of the women moaned, grabbing the man by the arm pleadingly. "Maybe no one! Maybe...Oh, maybe a noble! A royal! They would do it!"

"No, it's alright," he said very quietly, brushing her hands off. "It would be obvious of us to go to someone important. No one will notice her. No one will know."

"Well, you are all very interesting, but I'd like to get to town and back before evening!" the farm girl said with a grin that bordered on laughter. She made to step around them, but the man, apparently the leader of the posse, set a hand on her shoulder. He withdrew it in a second, but it was enough to make her stop.

"We would like to ask you a favor."

"You're going to have to tell me before I agree," she said, suddenly feeling wary. This situation seemed so wrong, so unusual. Might these be bandits? Might they be trolling for slaves to pick up?

The man only nodded at her statement, and went on: "We are celestial beings and we have become enemies with a demon that seeks to harm us. We need to hide on another realm, and the only sure way to protect our names and location is through a spell that would...seal the information inside of someone else."

A beat of silence.

"That's a pretty tall tale!" the girl said. "This is...this is wasting my time!"

"No, it's true."

"What a stupid prank! What a joke!" She brushed by them and kept walking.

"Now, wait, please!" he said, making to follow. The woman who'd pleaded with him before now did so again, "No, never mind this idea! I can't stand it!"

"It will not seek her," he muttered in a low tone, and jogged to catch up to the girl. "Please, now. Will you let us prove it to you that we're angels?"

"Angels!" she scoffed, not stopping. "It's just so, so likely I'd just run into some angels standing on the road while I go to the marketplace!"

"It's not as if we don't exist! Just-- now, wait, please!" He made to grab her shoulder again. She twisted around with a shout, flinging her free hand to slap his away. As she turned, she sucked in a sharp breath and froze with wide eyes.

For on his back had materialized the most gorgeous pair of angelic wings, gold and iridescently shimmering, broad and huge, ruffled by the spring breezes. A golden glow was in his eyes, and she felt now a definite warm tingle to the very air around him; warm, not just, but also simply...joyful. She felt pleased, awed, relaxed, and yet also terrified by his presence.

"O-oh."

"Yes. 'Oh'." He sighed, and his holy visage withdrew into him again, leaving him to look nothing but human. "Perhaps this is a terrible idea..."

"O-oh, no! I..." The girl now was not so certain. There was no doubt in her about the verity of his words. There was no mistaking what she had felt and seen just now.

"No, no. This is a...this is poor wisdom. You're not obligated whatsoever to..."

"I-I'll help you! I will! I'd love to! An honor, to, I mean, with, for you, such an honor--!"

The other beings in the group looked relieved, and also markedly worried. She ignored that. Yet, their worried expressions and downcast glances that passed their faces when she agreed to their plan would continue to nag at her for days...Until she came to know the source of their concern.

Later.

They departed to some higher echelon of the cosmos, and she watched them go; watched them be swallowed up by golden light and be gone in mere moments. They had put a spell on her which made her mind a lock box to secure their names within. They'd told her that no force of might or magic could ever pry her open and reveal the names sealed inside. The only means by which their identities would ever be known would be of her own volition. But she vowed never to volunteer the information; never, even, to tell her own family of the meeting at all. No one need know.

She made it to the market, an hour later than intended. It was noon now, and very hot even in the dusty shade of canvas awnings that stretched over the crowded lane of booths. It had a steamed and sweaty smell to it, nearly overpowered by the stench of far too many foods. She sold her hen for a hefty price (to match the hefty rear of the overfed egglayer), and turned back the way she came, only to balk and step back.

There was a man standing there, looking down at her with black and sunken eyes under heavy eyebrows, and a grimy demeanor about his whole face and body. His clothes were plain and dark and fell lankly from his tall frame like tattered curtains. His hair was no less bedraggled and black.

"Excuse me," she said in a flat, blunt tone. Though only eleven, she never let the adults intimidate her.

He did not speak, but only narrowed his eyes at her, lips parted thoughtfully. He seemed to be concentrating on something very small, as if gazing at a queer insect on her forehead. She felt nervous at the thought, and brushed off her face with her sleeve in case something was there. But...no. Somehow, she knew, his eyes were looking directly into her.

"Excuse me," she said again, far quieter, and edged her way around him before briskly jogging and then running back home. She felt, for all the warmth of high noon's unhidden springtime sun, inexplicably cold the entire run.

Later.

She arrived to some admonishment from her parents for her mild tardiness, and she explained away the lost hour with a hasty fib about the hen escaping and running into the woods along the creek, forcing her to chase the fat rascal through the underbrush. They forgave her and sent her off to do her chores with her brother.

She felt ill towards herself the rest of the day as she turned the soil and harvested what had already grown, fed the cattle, chickens, and dog, and finally cleaned the dishes at the end of the day. Her brother needled her with questions about her trip, for he had not yet been privileged to go to town at his tender age of seven. But she told him it was an awfully boring trip and the marketplace stank and everyone was ugly, and she felt a bit more ill to herself, feeling that somehow -- after a life of total truthfulness -- she had stumbled and fallen into a deep well of dishonesty. But she tried to brush away these worries as she'd brushed away the worried faces of the angels earlier. She wouldn't have to bring up this topic again and all'd be well. It would simply become an odd event that had taken place on an old spring day, some distant, pretty little memory to reflect upon in her wrinkled years.

But as she looked out the window over the kitchen sink that night, towards the forest that edged the stream, she felt that chill again. She found she could not stare out at the blackness for very long without her mind imagining demonic things rearing up at the window. At one point, she could have sworn she saw three points of orange light in the shadows of the trees, like a three-eyed jack-o-lantern watching her from across the entire field. Watching...and looking far, far into her, seeking out her secrets, seeing her through the night, seeing her soul--

"Missed this one," a voice piped behind her and she jumped, nearly throwing a wet glass across the room. She saw it was only her brother, who'd found a fork that had somehow been left behind.

"Oh," she said as casually as she could. She took the fork and sloshed it around in the sink water.

"You sure did jump," he said. "Did I scaaare you?"

"No, I just got distracted. Didn't see you walk up," she huffed.

"I sca-a-ared you!" He made claws with his hands and tried to give a ferocious little lion's growl despite his smug giggling. She flicked suds at him with a teasing grin, and he yelped in protest and fled before she could splash him with the water in her cupped hands.

Later.

Saruth opened her eyes. The memories fell away again like autumn leaves carried far downstream, the pictures of her brother naught but a distant, pretty little memory to reflect upon in her dim unconsciousness. When fainted, those years were like crystalline baubles she could grasp and admire for their facets finely, in so much detail, so warm, so good, so ... guilty. And then she recovered from her injuries, and the pictures floated back into the darkness where she could not see them and dared not tried to grasp. Those dreams brought no good feelings now.

She was lying on her bare stomach on cold, uneven stone. She sat up in the darkness and tried to gain her bearings (sometimes she was dragged far from where these things began). She recognized a sheet of hanging, curved rock marked with red streaks, which resembled a large strip of bacon affixed to the cave ceiling. The caverns were low and small and jagged here, places for only small animals or small people to hide. Sometimes, though, the predators made their way in to flush out the small game.

She stood, having only just enough room to do so. She was filthy with her own blood from the waist down where she'd been shredded, and gritty with black sand. Her ruddy hair was a ratty mess. Her arm was out of socket; she pushed it back in with a wince. All things considered, it hadn't been too bad of a day.

She first sought the nearby stream, meaning to cleanse herself before heading home. She didn't want to startle her son too badly.

The stream was fickle, but fresh. It was a steady trickle of lukewarm water which, depending on recent erosion, may be quite distant in its travels from whence it was last seen to flow. Fortunately, Ruth found it more-or-less in the same spot as last time, and quietly splashed herself with the water using her cupped hands. It stung the gashes on her legs, but she knew she'd heal better once the intrusive grime was gotten rid of. Indeed, she could see the muscles already stitching themselves together where she cleaned them out.

Keeping a constant wariness of her dark, midnight-silent surroundings, she finished her cleansing quickly and left for home again, using an alternate route. She didn't want to be walking the tunnel splashed with her blood; the scent would only attract more of them right now. It was best to follow the long path home. It meandered like a drunkard on the beach, with silly weaves, rises and falls, but it had no fresh scents except that of old stone. It was a smell familiar to the girl now; the age, the cold, the smoke, the endless miles of red and black rock. What she'd give to smell the wind carry strawberries and manure to her again. Hell, what she'd give to feel the wind whatsoever. The air was still here in an impossible, deep-rock way, less stirred than in even basements and attics. It was too quiet, too easy to make noise, too easy to scatter loose pebbles with one of them listening for just that moment to find you and catch you--

But it was all familiar. The scents of farmlands and the very color green were only crushed leaves now, dry and dead, floating down the riverbed. And the longer she lived, the further down and away they went from her. Perhaps someday she would not even remember what she used to be named.

Later.

"Mom..."

She hated to hear his voice like that. She hated he ever knew what happened to her. She ducked through the hole into their cozy cave that for now was home, until they were forced out by something bigger and stronger.
"Hello, Dech," she said with a sincerely warm smile. She sat down against the wall and started digging small furrows in the dirt with her fingers. He watched her with a quiet sadness. She surmised what it was that he was thinking, even if she could not read his mind. But she'd known him a long time and it was easy to read his face by now.

"You know I'd go crazy if I just did nothing all the time," she said as she worked. "I needed something to keep me busy. Just a little...hobby, I guess."

"Yeah." His tail flicked with unease.

"...I'm alright. Besides, it'll be nice to have something else to eat." She started depositing the seeds she'd gathered. It had been the entire purpose of her trip, to make it to one of the riparian, subterranean strips of growth where plants and even vegetables grew without light.

Dech said nothing for a long time. Finally he asked, "So what are you doing?"

"Gardening," she said. She pushed the dirt back over the seeds. "It's something I used to do."

"Don't they need water?"

Silence.

Ruth finally looked over at her son, who was frowning with thoughts she could easily guess. The stream never trickled here in their cave; it never trickled anywhere safely near here. She'd have to venture out constantly to fetch enough water to help the plants grow.

But if she didn't have something to do other than sit and wait without sleeping for hundreds of years, wait for the bigger and stronger things to come get them, wait for the raucous shrieking to split the neverending night, wait for Dech's father to make an unfriendly visit and demand his pound of flesh, if she didn't have something to do other than count the seconds until the next scene in her nightmare, she would go insane. Again.

She stared evenly at her son. "Yes. They do need that."