Sunlight streaked through the spire's windows, the golden rays illuminating motes of dust that filtered through the air. Every floor, every nook, and every cranny of the ancient structure was bare, save for the small lap desk that rested in the center of the attic floor and a pair of carrier pigeon cages set under the attic window. Much like every small sound that issued in the voluminous vacancy, the avians' coos echoed against the stonework.
Her footsteps were a whisper upon the stairs, soundless and soft. She approached the small desk and melted, like a sigh on the wind, into a kneeling position before it. Dipping quill to ink, she began gazing--not at the blank pages that rested in tidy piles upon the surface, but at the multiple scraps of parchment that surrounded them. Her amethyst gaze was calm, her features statuesque, and her posture impossibly straight as she stared for long moments at the cramped scraps.
With the grace of a dancer, she lifted the ink-soaked quill from its pot and began to write. The script was cramped, tight, and displayed the trembling lines of the aged. It moved in uneven lines across the page, the words blending, and at times misshapen. Using a dry quill, so as not to besmirch her pristinely cleaned appendages, she fabricated smudges and finger marks.
Rising in one smooth motion, she left her untidy work to dry upon the desk and lazily moved to the nearby window, her movements as effortless and smooth as silk fluttering in a breeze. She kept to the shadows within the room, though her eyes took in everything the sun touched.
Time slipped past, the sun dipping from zenith to kiss the tops of the trees and only as the first rays began to disappear beyond that leaf-dappled horizon did she stir from her silent repose. She stood above the now dry parchment, her eyes searching for some mistake in her writings, some flaw or misgiving that would give away her forgery. Finding none, she purposefully dog-eared one corner and created a tiny rip in another, then folded the parchment in thirds. She retrieved a bit of wax from her pocket, produced a sliver of flame within her free fingertips and applied it to the stick. With deliberate moves, she dripped the viscous, blood red substance onto the folds. From another pocket, she produced a seal, and with purpose, misaligned the stamping. Slipping to the back of the attic, she pried a flagstone from its home and lifted a laden pouch with stretched seams. Plucking the folded parchment with its now dry wax seal, she headed down the stairs, and moments before slipping out of the towers front door, she discarded her grace and poise.
The girl that stood on the pathway in the purple and orange twilight held none of the characteristics of the one that moments ago had been in the spire's attic. Hunched and shuffling, she shied away from others on the pathways. Her steps were heavy, one foot dragging slightly behind the other and catching on every crack and crevice upon the ground. She timidly knocked upon the door to the house that she had shuffled to, and when someone answered, she jumped like a frightened mouse at the response.
"I'm so sorry, my dear," said the woman beyond the pane. "I know how easy you frighten, I should have been more cautious, and I'm sure you are very upset with your Master's abrupt departure. Please, please come in."
Murmuring her thanks, she hides behind the curtain of her wind-tossed hair and steps inside.
~*~ Thandiwe ~*~
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