And the wind sang in her ears, whispering harsh nothings to her mind and chilling her body. She danced in the cool wind, ignorant and uncaring of the deepening shadows and the firey-redpinkorangepurple flames that lit the sky as the sun died a beautiful death.

She swayed gracefully as the trees chattered in the background, punctuated by the distant tang of rain in the ozone scented-air. Her luminous eyes were closed blissfully, a small smile on her face as she danced barefoot in the grass on the hill with rain on the way and the wind singing in her ears.

She could hear and see what others didn’t, because they were al blind, or she was just insane. She wasn’t stupid, no matter what others said of her, she could hear what they said about her.

And sometimes ,when she wasn’t the poor, smiling, quiet little dancing girl, she was the Red woman who’s eyes were as dead as ashes and who’s body was cold and her mouth was warm, so warm that she burned people in the heat of it.

But only when she wasn’t the quiet little dancing girl.

And her feet moved in complicated patterns as leaves rustled and the intricately layered grayblue tinged clouds drifted in front of the moon.

The moon told her stories, prophecies and secrets that had been whispered into coffins and pillows and told to graves in the quiet moonlight.

She listened silently, and replied back to all the things that the moon had divulged to her, murmuring softly to the winds and rushes and the curls of breeze that twined around her legs.

People thought her even more insane, glancing at her in the streets and talking about her when she was't there.

She was the Ghost of their town, the Dancing Girl, who danced in the streets, sometimes, and who sang and laughed and who seemed to live off bread and fruit and water and good wishes and sunlight. She was the little girlwoman who inhabited their paths, handing out flowers.

Most people liked her, and gave her her foodwatergoodwishesandsunlight for free.

She had had a brother once, a well-meaning brother who had chased her to the ends of the earth and beyond and who had tried his best to close her poor, cracked skull from the voiceswhispersecrets that deluged her mind and who would have tried his best to stop her from walking up to the mean men who called her names and telling them all of their secrets [dirtylittlesecretstheywereyesdirtylittlesecrets, like how one was fucking another man’s wife and how one was fudging the books at his company] in broad daylight in the middle of the street.

But her brother was deadeadead, dead and gone and buried well and good in that God-forsaken little hole that he had called a home. Resting with the sandlizards, she had told him mockingly, speaking caustically to his headstone, drunk as fuck [because if she wasn’t then she wouldn’t be able to face this] and weaving on her feet. Somewhere in her head she knew that her brother would have disapproved of this.

But her brother was gone and she was alive and it just went to show you that the good guys don’t always win.

---

Author's Note:

I think this is written for River, a girl who was experimented on to turn her into a weapon in a TV series called 'Firefly'.