Janele (prime)/Watcher in the Jungle

Watcher in the Jungle

The view from her perch seemed the same as alway - well, almost the same. The one notable exception: the smoke visible through the jungle canopy. Not the usual smoke, like the ordinary wisps of white from a cooking fire, or the heavy puffs of grey from what remains of a Grimswarm encampment. No, this was black, sooty smoke - the kind that rolls heavily from a flame that burns too hot and too fast. This smoke was unlike any she had seen before, and it dissipated as quickly as it came, as though dispersed on the four winds with the wave of an unseen hand.

"Flames", she thought with a sigh. "Not like illusions of fire the sand creates. This smoke comes from some tangible flame."

Silently, she sat on the branch, staring into the middle-distance, until a pair of Iyo youth stir her from her reverie. They slip quietly past, a boy and a girl, about the same age, and clearly related. She watched them disappear in the greenery. Another sigh, and again her mind slips briefly into a vision her own youth.

"Jenner", she says with a whisper. "Just tell me where you've gone. You're the only one who ever believed me."

Without further hesitation, she nods in determination and swings down from the tree, her skirt snagging briefly on the old banyon before she gracefully lands on her feet. Giving her brass badge a quick polish, she pulls two stones from her purple and green poke before glancing into her palm. Rubbing the firestone and black jasper together briefly, she frowns before slowly beginning to make her way to Hale Hall, a dusky sandrat scampering at her heels.