Father's out on campaign and doesn't know. Mother thinks she's on a school trip. The school thinks she's staying home. In truth, she's in a cave in the mountains. Digging a tunnel with her fists, in the dark. If she can connect the southwest passages to the main burrow, she'll be able to visit much more freely.
Her steady break-scoop-pack movements make a comfortable rhythm, and she allows herself to fall into an almost trance-like state as she works.
There rise the mountains behind her, the trees crawling further up their slopes since last she saw. Before, the forest sweeps down to the edge of the sea uninterrupted by the presence of a town, though it grows brownish in the region in which there ought to be one. Strange animals and birds chatter in the background, hidden from sight but quite audible.
A bright pink, slightly translucent bunny with butterfly wings flaps carelessly into view. Its gaze crosses hers, and it startles.
"Eep! She's here!" Its voice is soft and squeaky.
She bows politely. "Hello. I'm so sorry to bother you, I'd like to get out of your way, but I'm lost."
"Oh my. Oh my. I must go tell Koh at once! Oh my."
"The Face Stealer, yes. They did ask to be told. Oh, you should wait here." It flutters away.
Aaannnnd it's gone.
If there is, they don't care to answer.
In the distance, something is rumbling.
Tarinda tries stepping back whence she came, placing her feet in exactly the same places.
The world stays the same.
The tops of the trees sway, as if brushed aside in the wake of some great beast's passage.
She has her weapons. She doesn't reach for them.
She times a bow to reach its lowest point when whatever-it-is comes into view.
Whatever-it-is proves to be an enormous centipede creature. It circles around and around, coiling its body up. It brings its face, a blank white mask, level with Tarinda's.
"Well well well well well." The mask blinks, and is replaced with the visage of a young boy. "What do we have here."
"No, of course you didn't. No one ever does. But even the best of intentions cannot change the fact of the matter."
Blink. Now an old woman.
"Kindness. And what have you ever done to deserve such? Humans. You are all the same no matter the point of origin. You take and you take and you take, and always demand the world bend to you."
"And with two simple words, all the wrongs of the past millenia are wiped away. No. It is not so easy."
"Once, there was one world. Now, there are two, and this dies to feed the other. Dies, for the greed and ignorance of humans."
"You do not? Have you been too busy with your plans of disruption to care what it is you seek to overturn?"
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