Chapter 593: An Elf's Tale, Part 1

From the darkness, a shimmer, from the shimmer, a ripple… 

A rippling… flowing… swirling… blue.

The river was staring, reflecting… and in the shallow depths of the watery canvas mirrored back a glint of green.

The woman above blinked her eyes… and the river blinked back at her.

Throughout, encompassing everywhere, the early morning dew smelled potently of the early dawn of spring, of moss, of fish, of rain, of rot… and of humans.

Skeletal carcasses drifted slowly along with the tide, pungent lumps of clothing and flesh still clinging to its surface… what little remained of what nature hadn't yet consumed.

A stray piece had washed ashore on the riverbank, the rippling, the flowing, and the swirling, delivering one before her knees.

The bone was brittle, tiny… barely the length of her palm she observed, as she lightly ran a finger across its coarse texture.