Alraune Kestrel

?Do you know what you?re doing??

Alraune glared at the man, upside down, his foot caught in the limbs of a massive Yew tree. Wind swept past her, floating her misty hair about her bare shoulders and breasts, but as was the nature of the dreaming, the breeze?s caress never truly touched her.

?I might ask you the same thing. You?d think after so long, you?d figure a way out of that mess.? Alraune smirked.

?Now, dear lady, you know I choose to be here, just as you choose to do what?ever it is you?re doing.? He smiled, his face red from the pooling blood.

Alraune nodded, her fingers working swiftly, trimming the nightshade, twining it with mandrake and ginseng, the dreaming herbs slowly taking shape.

The man sighed heavily, and scratched his head. ?What are you doing??

She looked up from her kneeling position beneath the shifting tree, now a massive oak with limbs that brushed the swirling mauve sky, into the inverted face of the man. ?I?m shaping a totem, a home and anchor for the warden I have summoned.?

He craned his neck to look at her work. ?What is it supposed to be? A dog??

Alraune?s face went to stone. ?It?s going to be a dragon.?

?Oh. Yes. I see it now.? He rolled his eyes and look up to his caught foot. ?All this for some Drow??

?She?s just a child.?

?But you hate children,? he sputtered.

?I don?t hate them. I just don?t care for most of them, and I don?t think I should ever have them.? Alraune worked the fine stems of the nightshade, carefully weaving the framework of the totem?s wings.

?It?s different when the babe?s your own.?

Alraune shook her head. ?The women of my family turn into maniacal bitches when they conceive, and motherhood just amplifies it. I?ll not do that to?? her voice faded to a whisper, ?everyone.?

The wind shook the leafless ash, the pale bark and knotted trunk catching the hanging man?s shirt.

Alraune stared at her work, her concerns flowing from her, turning the dreaming sky a sullen red-grey. It had been so easy to summon the warden of the Tower of Dreams. Her strength there had been rooted in the very foundation, the first stone laid had been touched by the essence of dreams. The home she and Adam now shared outside Trinsic had its own history, its own tradition, and Alraune respected the spirit of the structure even while she infused it with her essence. But such enchantments took time, and time was not on Alraune?s side.

Red turned to bronze, to golden and then green, the sky swirling and changing as often as the tree that held firmly to the man before her.

?Is she worth it?? He asked as Alraune sat up, rolled her head on her neck and her shoulders.

She remained silent for several moments, thinking about the question. ?Would I be here, if I didn?t think she was??

?You know you?re exposing yourself ? and Adam,? he warned.

She nodded, her resolve firm. ?I know.?

?Do you know what you?re up against??

Alraune rose to her feet slowly. She carefully lifted the crafted totem, cradling the topiary in her palms. She looked at the overgrown myrtle tree, its small dead leaves fluttering to the ground. She smiled at the man, her voice a chime on the dreaming breeze as she faded toward the veil of waking.

?Does it matter??

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