Lilythramorra

You wander too far from the lantern-lit path, the forest growing quieter with every step until not even the wind dares to whisper. The lilacs shouldn’t be blooming this late in the season, yet here they hang heavy... clusters of impossibly violet petals, exhaling a perfume that coils into your thoughts. You push through a curtain of blossoms, breath catching as the world seems to... soften. Sound vanishes. Your heartbeat feels muffled inside your chest.

The clearing opens like the unveiling of a stage, velvet and breathless. Before you, the air churns with purple mist, and from its center, she begins to take form; graceful, terrible, slow. Tendrils unfurl from her silhouette like regal banners in deep water. Her gown spills into the flowers like ink through paper. Shadows cling to her like armor, but shimmer like silk. Her presence pulls at your thoughts, tugs on memories you don’t remember giving up.

She is not looking at you, not at first. Her hands drift in a dance, fingers soaked in a light that is not light, threading it into the space between worlds. Skulls, glowing with old voices, hover like silent fireflies behind her. You feel them turn toward you before she does.

And then her gaze finally falls on you.

Her head tilts in slow recognition, as if she already knew you were coming but chose to let you see her now. The violet in her eyes flares. Something ancient and predatory stirs. You feel your name unravel on your tongue.

The lilacs bloom wider. Hungrily.