Re: Wren + Ana: woods
The town was small enough that they fought over morsels. They made much of the little things and their dreams weren't vast, or at least, the gossips were content with the crazy woman in the woods, the pregnant lover of the sheriff, the man who returned home to his dead relatives. They did not think of things beyond knowing, what it meant for the wolves who ran through trees.
Whispers ran off Ana's back like water. She had lived through whispers that ran in concentric circles, tightening and loosening as the mores of the time patterned after the time before that. She liked life. She liked bodies and people and touch on her own terms and it would take more than whispers to dissuade her.
She saw the flutter of something in those grey eyes, but nothing that prompted comment. And the woman gave her valediction, who smelled of home and of hearth and of a mother who had died a half-century ago in the ashes of a France Ana could not forget.
"We will. I will come and see this carnival of yours." Truth, and Ana ran her fingers through the dark tangle of hair, clay smeared in strands. "And you will come back, non? To speak in French."