07.31.04 - 2:51 p.m.

[Just a snippet of narrative from writings for Jaione. This will have loads of snippets of my narrative, since I always forward them to myself from work (where I write on notepad while doing other things) and then never ever touch them again, just leave them sitting in the inbox because I WILL USE THEM again. Shyeah, right. I'm a better writer now, though. If I wrote this now...]

The raucous calls of gulls mingles with the querulous chatter of the other shorebirds - the sandpipers and plovers, stilts and yellowlegs, snipes and godwits. They are all gathered on the narrow mudflats beneath the cliffs, revealed as the tide rolls out, casting long, elegant shadows by the light of the dying sun.

Just beyond, surf foams a dirty white, still seething among all the broken spines, the coves and valleys, the hidden fissures and well-worn caves of this tiny spit of land - if it even deserves such a title. Her feet - bare and slashed to bits by her scrabbling journey down the cliffs and across the crabbed finger of land - bleed freely, but her blood does not even begin to stain the foam crimson. No, the setting sun does that, and blinds her in the bargain.

She crouches, leaning half-forward to balance on the balls of her feet and ease some of the pressure from her cracked, abraded heel. She lost half-a-nail on her big toe, and split two fingernails to boot, scrambling down the worn limestone cliffs to the spit of land unnamed on maps (unnoticed on most), and nameless to natives as well. The shrine rose above her, its pale columns flecked with seaweed and other debris, but still luminous as the moon above the dark facing of rock and sea.

So, then I re-wrote that, apparently the same day, as follows:

The raucous calls of gulls mingles with the querulous chatter of the other shorebirds - the sandpipers and plovers, stilts and yellowlegs, snipes and godwits. They are all gathered on the narrow mudflats beneath the cliffs, revealed as the tide rolls out, casting long, elegant shadows by the light of the dying sun.

Just beyond, surf foams a dirty white, still seething among all the broken spines, the coves and valleys, the hidden fissures and well-worn caves of this tiny spit of land - if it even deserves such a title. Her feet - bare and slashed to bits by her scrabbling journey down the cliffs and across the crabbed finger of land - bleed freely, but her blood does not even begin to stain the foam crimson. No, the setting sun does that, and blinds her in the bargain.

She crouches, leaning half-forward to balance on the balls of her feet and ease some of the pressure from her cracked, abraded heel. She lost half-a-nail on her big toe, and split two fingernails to boot, scrambling down the worn limestone cliffs to the spit of land unnamed on maps (unnoticed on most), and nameless to natives as well. The shrine rose above her, its pale columns flecked with seaweed and other debris, but still luminous as the moon above the dark facing of rock and sea where it is cast in shadow. Where the sun's rays slant across the milky stone it washes crimson as blood.

Crimson as the bloodied footsteps she left behind her. Crimson as the moon-blood that has not flowed for three turnings. Unconsciously, she curves a hand across her stomach, and though none can see, she can feel the faint, taut swell. Perhaps...

But no, she chose this path - for both of them - and there is no turning back. What else could I have done? Her doubts are not so much articulations of her fear as they are wordless sinks of black, black doubt.

[OMHIGAWD. Divine - well, DC territory, definitely. Bleh.]