The afternoon red star filtered lazily through the canopy of the dense forest, slanting golden light across a clearing speckled with moss-covered stones and tangled undergrowth. The air was rich with the scent of pine, earth, and something metallic - the scent of beasts.
At the edge of a small rise, under the wide shade of an ancient maple tree, Lucy lay on her stomach in the grass, chin propped on her hands. Beside her, Alice reclined against the trunk, a book resting on her lap though her eyes weren't on the pages. Instead, they were fixed on the figures moving through the trees below elegant, deadly, and unbothered.
"They make it look like a dance," Alice murmured, shielding her eyes with a hand.
Lucy grinned. "That's because for them, it is a dance."
Down below, the clearing had turned into a fluid battlefield.
