Naoki or Jami, maybe?
Splinters from paintings God made and immediately forgot.
The thought drifted into her head as Jami walked barefoot through the scrub pines. Her fingers lifted to trace chandeliers of bluish-green, the deciduous decadence lush and teeming with life in the high hills. Her eyes drifted from shadow to shadow--each outline more detailed to her than they might be to others. In the trees, Jami could read every movement--see each depth and pocket of darkness as something with layers and heartbeats and hesitance.
Her head tilted as she craned her neck to view the moon rising overhead.
Through the thickets came a gentle hum of something more. Wings of insects, the frantic, near-soundless flutter of avian life shifting from elm to spruce and back again. Her fingers caught the bark of a particularly old tree and the vampiress all but melted into it--her back pressed flat against scratchy, gnarled wood flaking in the midsummer heat.
Someone was looking for her.
But she was looking for something.
Her long legs shifted her like an elegant heron--spiking her through the underbrush with careless and effortless grace. Blackberry bushes pushed aside clung to her in reverence, tugging at the would-be dress that was more a gossamer sigh; a suggestion of steam, than an actual garment. Her pace quickened with the echo of a heart that did not beat. In her eyes was a fierce and immeasurable light; a liveliness that ignited each iris with purpose and turned the pupils to pinpricks; punctuation that steadied her cause.
When she leapt over a fallen log, it was with the rise and fall of fog in the early morning light.
When she fell, it was upon the neck of a rabbit, her hands twisted up in its soft and downy fur.
As she was a part of the forest, so she hunted, so she fed, freer and more content than she ever thought possible.
Proteus was near, shouting a hoarse “marco?” into the trees, hoping for a “polo!” that would not come--
For all the games Jami played, the hunt was always her favorite.
