nothing exists on this earth without them knowing.

in land and sea and sky: the divine saw every pebble and creature that live in their grace. from hallowed grounds, they weigh the sins and virtues of their children. those fashioned in their image know of a sainthood greater than hers, for it is said that these monsters that be did not take from the holy tree. but, the humans that wrest knowledge from it: believing themselves just, and exacting students of the celestial.

subservient, are the gods that would've been:

her own escapes into the sea, and she searches the shore for it now with a quiet hum.

the tide ebbs and flows and the ocean crashes against the stone outcroppings just beyond the beach. oceanic winds whip at her skirts, sending white and sand into the air. her heel digs deep into the kelp strewn across the sediment and her smile shrinks every time that she does not hear a withering yelp in apology. there is nowhere that it can go without her knowing.

there is nowhere that it can run without her finding.

carnelian softens to syrupy cordials as she spies the withering creature, and smiles as she thinks of the gods and of herself as she begs a question of who she can only assume is another mistaken soul that believes that they owed these monsters anything but their contempt:

"careful. it knows violence, my dear."

Galayne Valois