The day darkens more as I get closer to the brown cliff, although I have no idea if this is a sign of the day ending. I don't know what time it is, or even what day, which only confirms that this must be a dream.
The trees thin back and shrink to shrubs, the greater patches of ground showing through the undergrowth until, finally, all I can see is mud brown broken by the occasional black-brown rock rising like the curve of a fish breaking the surface of the water.
At least, that's what it makes me think of.
The mud isn't the kind that sucks me in -- and I feel relieved about that, as if I should remember somewhere that was that kind of muddy. Instead, the mud is thick and clings so that, at times, I feel like I'm taking some strange aerobics class with weights tied to my feet. Then it falls off and begins to build again.
Until it doesn't because I'm being lifted from the path, several sharp somethings digging in to my shoulders.
"You really shouldn't be down here, you know. This realm has a habit of stealing people's selves. Turns them into nothing but archetypes."
I have no idea what an archetype is. I gather it's insulting.
"And what are you doing without your elf? I told you before: without your elf, you've got nothing!"
I look up at the voice. I have no choice because looking down gives me vertigo and my peripheral vision is catching movement on either side of me that matches up with a weird down draft. All that's left is to look up towards the voice and hope this isn't another weird thing.
"I feel healthy, though," I say to the brown feathers and beak I'd rather not see, particularly from underneath and trying not to think about the stab wounds the talons are no doubt making.
"Oh, you've been there that long, have you?" the voice says rather than asks. I'm not certain how it comes out of the beak but the beak is certainly moving in time to the noise. "Your elf should have known better than to take you there, even if you are a totally psychopathic piece of work."
That is not a description of me I recognise. That said, I don't recognise myself in any description.
"Do I know you?" I ask.
The head above me turns and I find myself looking at a shiny black eye that doesn't show anything other than mild interest. "We've met."
I hope it doesn't have chicks.