22.

sadness

Vorah looked over the forests, slick with an oily fog that hung over the entire island. She hopped from one floating stone to another, uncaring about the mud seeping between her toes. She'd shed her disguise back with Ris, clad once more in a thin linen shift. Her thick violet hair spilled down her back, longer than usual with months of disrepair. Gold-on-lavender eyes unbound, she took in the rest of the landscape.

Ris, in any animal form, had the enhanced senses of a beast. She had to lose his scent, or else he would swoop down on her and carry her away to another town.

Splashing down into a weak stream, she grimaced at the thick silt on the bottom and felt the leeches pop beneath her toes. Her shift already ruined, she sighed and reached back, tying her hair into a large plait and winding it up on her head.

A great cry shattered the silence, and Vorah looked upward, in time to see the great form of dragonRis wheel through the sky, screaming, and fly to the east.

A great depression weighed on her heart, but she could only turn to the muck of the stream and press on.