Her craft

This post is a continuation of this story, and it includes the word craft: skill in deceiving to gain an end.

She watched from afar, new to this world. Alone, as she had arrived, she lingered in the grove of bare red-barked trees on the hill overlooking the others, watching and gathering her strength. Her death hours earlier had left her weak. She still wore the simple white gown and her hair was loose around her shoulders. She would need to find a way to tie it back. As for weapons, she was armed only with her craft.

She’d have to watch carefully for she sensed that the gathering of odd creatures today was a special one. The clusters seemed peaceful – she could hear soft music playing from tiny flutes and curvy horns. Perhaps weapons would be unnecessary, even useless here. She could feel their anticipation and their secret exhaustion.

To succeed here she’d need sustenance. She needed to learn the ways of the citizens, quickly. Sometimes friendship grew instantly, but more often she had to fight for it. She sensed, pleasantly, that in this world friendship would be easy. The beauty of the unusual creatures struck her, a passing glimpse of sun glinting off of the vibrant fur of a golden bearlike beast and catching the iridescent blue and purple wings of a fairy girl. She noticed that no two creatures were exactly alike. They seemed almost oblivious to their differences, just murmuring to one another and nodding to the passing musicians.

Curious, she crept to the edge of the trees, hoping to overhear their conversations, to learn their lilting tongue. She called on her gift for language, knowing that she would need to speak with them, and soon, to succeed in this world. She would need to make them believe in her if she would ever succeed at leading them, and she knew that she must lead them. Leading them was surely the quickest path to her next death.