I know the bottom, she says. I know it with my great tap root.

Caked with the dirt of endless miles treaded by tired and calloused feet those same tired and bone bare digits drag forward an equally bare body. Doe like - those lean limbs pulled that dark, starving body into familiar ground as large eyes stare with endless caution. Circe has survived her first winter. It is time for fattening the sinew which is left of her but she is relentlessly drawn to the redwoods like a horse led violently by it's bridle, the mouth bloody and foaming at the sharp bit. She almost does not remember. The obscure and dreamlike images which have guided her lack any memory of a family.

It is what you fear.

She is hard like the earth. Like the dirt and rock against those worn pads and she has invested little thought in her creation. Assuming only that she was derived of that very hardness. Careful and calculated her stride comes to a sudden halt within the depths of the forest. Fleshy and the color of charcoal her nose first lowers to the ground and then rises skyward, lips curling to bare bone-white teeth. Trespasser the word echoes within her typically barren thoughts. Hackles raise as the scent amplifies. Her tail slashes the air with anxiety. She is frozen, all but one hovering limb firmly planted on that hard earth that she had thought was hers.

I do not fear it, I have been there.