Chapter Text
pallene is young, sitting cross-legged underneath a tree, leaves on the grass all green and gingko-rugged.
in the crook of her ankle rests a staff, an odd branch she found when she was younger - her sister tied yarn around the end when pieces of the bark fell away or got chewed off. most of it fell off and she replaced it instead with some ribbon and a bootlace. from where she sits she can see the slow shapes of sheep off-white and dun-brown amble across the meadow. the graceful raise of the highland ewe's head hurries those around her forward, great gray horns urging them onwards in a silent ritual as they row from one side of the field to the other through the course of the day.
when they reach the far end of the pasture where pallene can only see back ends and cropped spots of bare earth and the occasional lifting of sheep-head over sheep-shoulder, the sky is red-orange and alive with insects. she sets out across the field, closing distance between her and the flock. the sheep file in a fine line through the gate and pallene takes a moment, turns on her heels, leans on the gate.
the sky is wild and wide enough to swallow her whole, orange like the bitter merigolds on the outcroppings of stone along the hills, orange like the fruit-colored dewlap of an anole lined up with the fence, orange like the meat of a nectarine she once cut open and later buried in the garden.
(it made her stomach turn. she felt terrible for hurting something that never hurt her, and wanted to tell her sister about it, and didn't, and that made her feel even worse.)
by the time she looks away all the color in her world has gone a little gray for a moment, eyes blown out from the nectarine-marigold sky as she shuts the gate behind her.