2024-07-11 - and how the wind stirs |5.3|

For a long time - or perhaps not so long, but it feels long, an eternity where Knuadth dares not to trust the ground beneath or the air beyond, not even the minds of Mother and his siblings - Knuadth remains very still and very quiet. But outside has become quite different now than the steady heat and echoing stillness of before. Eventually, he cannot help but notice it. It changes often, to a rhythm he has to learn, and at first he shies away from the cooler air and soft tingle of light as if they too might start to break something important.

But they do not.

He rather likes the changes, the gradual swing from familiar warmth to a chill kept comfortingly at bay, and the strange little shock accompanying anyone approaching during this time. Knuadth hadn't understood so much of the pressure and eagerness some of his siblings felt to be out already, but now - now he wants to feel these things more keenly, find out what makes the difference between the warm time and cool. The light he basks in could be so much closer!

Now he strains outward just a little, pressing up to the closed boundaries of his world.

When outside changes yet again, falling into a great rushing mass of noise and strange, fleeting pressures, he is both a little smug - he had known it would change again! - and drawn to this new, frightening state. Is it frightening? It is sudden, and unknown, and both usually frighten him. And yet... the ceaseless hissing, the sense of motion somewhere he cannot reach or picture, even the way parts of the outside sound strained and rippling from the force of its passing... it is a little amazing, too. Once it has passed he sifts through every scrap of memory of it, how it felt, how it sounded, the strange wild joy of it.

It had better happen again, once he is outside at last.