Six crows in the night called, cackling out a greeting to the shadows and the moonlight.

There was little warning of her coming and going; Rhilshen no doubt found it difficult to pin her down, but perhaps might have found its streets a bit cleaner in the past few months. Little gifts of tongues, eyes, fingers or toes left behind in bright packages with tattered ribbon.

She knew that strings were frayed, some broken, other?s cut. She could feel them tug at her like line connected to hook in fish?s mouth?yet she did not feel the need to hurry anymore.

She was tired, xas. It was more difficult to understand humanity day in and day out, the more she mimicked them, the more she learned to sit like a good drow and not bite faces; the more she listened as well as parroted back the confusing things they said, the more she felt herself become distant from them. All that remained were memories, some times. The smell of sweat on carpets, polished boots and strange spices.

Turning her head slowly to the right, she considered the tall pines, the way they stood, silent sentinels to the hundreds of years that had passed and had not yet touched them.

?We understand loneliness,? rasped. ?But we understand it is beautiful and part of us.?

The trees, like the moon, the river, the rocks, the grass, the pipe buried and the snow had no reply nor answer. They never did.