Author's Preface
Pyna bends and sniffs like a hunting-beast at the tenderly-painted receptacles, balanced reverently.
She is careful not to touch the immaculate shrine-plate, though her finger drifts towards the creamy contents of the curving bowl.
There to hang for the length of a heart-flutter above its buttery stillness.
Souring and cold
Now
Once warm and
Liquorice, like...
She trails off, lips faintly parted as though awaiting a sigh.
Umin observes wordlessly, his face a wary mask, as an ever so slight tremor touches her hovering hand.
Eyes for a hairsbreadth seeming wider and winking brighter. In those confines something carnivorous.
Oh these
Haunting
Appetites.
Her hand falls away with a rustle of silk-cloth, as apparently unperturbed as ever as she turns to touch a door panel, rapping faintly.
There is a wooden echo followed by a rattle, like that of a parched, hollow gourd being shaken.
A tepid, urine-discoloured light streams from the uneven gap beneath the door.
Slippered footfalls and a silent pause.
The door opens a crack upon well-oiled hinges to reveal a florid half-face, squinting from disturbed sleep.
Forgive me, Senic
This rousal at
Unlovely
Hours.