Draw From Memory

     There wasn't a star left, she'd watched deep red clouds drift between her and the last one. Oaks above the pit she lay in rose naked and grey, quaking stiffly in intermittent wind. She watched them for a while, then unfocused her vision and listened to the wind. There two branches touched, there a leaf turned, there something fragile broke, a chorus, another and another. Visible breath rose from her sleepily until ground level and an unraveling sweep northeast. The earth beneath her contrasted nicely with the air and she drank their watercolor-bleeding happily.

     She sat up and climbed out of the ovular pit. A clearing of tall, yellow grass surrounded her, encircled by forest of both deciduous and evergreen towers. Another clearing could be seen through the trees ahead of her to the north. "Too long," she thought as her mass's attraction downward broke ice under her feet. They crunched ahead steadily then greeted undergrowth, swaying fronds, brushing bushes, snapping twigs, arching over roots, and compressing moss. Most large bodies loomed solid and grey here, light like marble in the reddish glow, seeming to hold the air in their architecture when all was still enough. But others stood soft in dark, deep green, warm somehow in their shade, full in little sharp lines or frond-like mats. There were places about their trunks she could imagine hiding and curves high in their branches she imagined sleeping, though most really couldn't hold her.
     Her feet paced steadily again out into a large field. A single tree stood about seventy yards of sagging grass away and smooth, distant hills lined the horizon. The wind continued, dancing down to earth at times near then far. Continuing, she watched it press down on the surface of the meadow, changing shapes and casting new shadows despite the freeze. In a particular dip she caught a sliver of something ahead to her left. Pace escalated. She only now realized how tense she'd been. Stretching as much as she could in flow of momentum, she caught up to her destination, registered it, and ran in. She grinned as "drops" from an icy stream splashed up into her face. "You could fly," something told her, but as everything within her seemed set to, she did not. Yards beyond, she slowed and leaned back to face the clouds and followed their swirling with her eyes. Her body slowly lowered to a sitting position, then further, hands trailing dirt and grass lovingly. Eyes moved on calmly waiting for the break.
     Rolling red dispersed into bright fluorescence. She squinted and sat up. They were moving hundreds of miles per hour, but it didn't feel like anything. "Still four months?" she asked a nearby shipmate jokingly.
     "Yup," he replied.
     "Alright."