It’s contemplative, the way she utters it and builds pressure from palate to just behind her nose, and feels the residual rumble beneath layers of muscle and skin. Again she stares at the glistening dew and listens to unknown songbirds and feels the air pre-warmed as she takes it in. There’s a damp feel to it. Humid. Satya glances at Ana to observe the colors of blue and grey and doesn’t pretend to know what she thinks. How could she, from a woman who lives as a revived specter chasing down the ones who deserve to be. In herself Satya has her own thoughts, riddled with doubts that aches in the spaces between her joints like medical side effects. But never once would she compare herself to Ana; Ana, who knows both sides of life and death and chooses, somehow, for some reason, to dabble in both.
Does she still look at her headstone when she visits the people who actually died?
She reaches across herself this time to drag a hand – right – across the dew-stained grass and feel cool beneath her fingertips.
“…You would like to continue this?”
For once she does not proclaim certainty. Ana is enigmatic despite her image. A face once-plastered upon walls of a woman in glory becomes intentionally obscure among death’s pews. Now she’s become an indescribable image, trying all once presumed true, and makes those err more to the sides of non-surety.
Those like Satya, who destine themselves to discover the undiscovered.
“It is quite magnificent.”
She thinks Oasis would be more beautiful. Instead she settles for this – a close second-best, knowing it will never be the same again.
Waves roll and crash against a distant shore and Satya sees foam against white-colored sand. It must have the feel of sifted flour with how it seems to settle so seamlessly. One day, then, she might ask if they could go down there. Or maybe by herself, during the evening, where the sky paints her in pink and orange and makes her look like gold.
A Midas touch to make him envious, she thinks, in a moment of self-righteous glory.
“I was…expecting you, actually.”
It hopefully requires no further explanation.
A place of peace has its purpose. Under duress, there is no time to take in the world’s landscapes. The Shrike is too busy to admire the world at large, fearing for her life, and pursuing the lives of other ghosts, all too often beyond the detection of adequate radar.
Here, she is at peace, relaxed and content in good company. it is so rare to simply exist without fear of being hunted, without fear of being found.
The sun shines down on both women, and brings out the glint in her amber coloured eye - a certain air of youth still lives on, despite wrinkles and white hair, and the years of stress buried in her posture, weighing down on her shoulders.
“I would...” The premise of a promise are laid out; were she a younger woman, she would not guarantee her permanence; as a ghost, she decides. Other obligations are so few. “I think I’ve been in need of a... break.” To put it lightly, a break serves as a place of rest and solitude, to clear the thoughts that haunt her, the thoughts that never leave.
Through the corner of her eye, Ana studies Satya. A proud profile is framed by long, dark hair. She is sharp but she is supple with plump lips and smooth cheeks. A woman in her prime, she is beautiful.
“Ah,” Ever the observer, it has been rather obvious that this is a place of meditation, of peace - one Ana has come to frequent. “Then, I don’t mind your company if it’s just us. Three’s company. Might be a little crowded.”
Even in her age, humour slips through the cracks; she can share in her secrets to a select few - and she finds Satya intriguing enough.
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