Hkepsut's blog

The sky was obscured by a dense arboreal canopy; the stars and full moon, in turn, were largely obscured by thick cloud cover.

Beneath it all she lay. Still. Ears imagined as twin vessels into which liquid sound would pour. The soundscape clicked and popped with the rustle of foliage and howled with the frigid winds. Beasts stalked prey; the insects sang paeans to would-be mates. Alien noises in an alien place.

The soft rasp of slumbering bodies also could be heard, plaintive and oddly comforting.

The darkness was receding now, and she turned her head, peering over at the Mitran. He had promised to be up for the final watch, a promise now as ethereal as his dreams. Not that it mattered. Unused to the nighttime cacophony of the Cimmerian lowlands, Axun had laid awake for most of the night, drifting in and out of fitful slumber. She had woken the bald pale-skin at one point, only to find him sound asleep again when next she woke.