update from sparkleup

writing/fanfic/southern-reach.html

@@ -84,17 +84,18 @@
 <p>Her hands were her own. She had a hand in their making. Her hand was forced hand in hand with blood on her hands washing her hands of the matter. After all, was a bird in the hand not worth two in the clearing, their beside the stairs where, written on the wall, were the words, &ldquo;Were lies the strangling fruit that came from the hand of the sinner&rdquo;?</p>
 <p>And there she was, and if there had been a transition from her being in her tent to her standing in the clearing, to her moving toward where those stairs bored down into the earth, she missed it, just as she had missed that transition between waking and sleeping.</p>
 <p>And yet was she asleep? Was she? She was here, and the air was heavy, and the light had failed, and the quiet was absolute aside from the sounds of the night. No words, no words.</p>
-<p>And there she was in front of her. There was her. There was her mirror image, her perfectly imperfect self.</p>
-<p>And they crouched toward each other, as if in preparation for flight.</p>
+<p>And there she was in front of her. There was her. There was <em>her</em>. There was her mirror image, her perfectly imperfect self.</p>
+<p>And they crouched toward each other, feral, as if in preparation for flight. </p>
 <p>And they reached out toward each other and their fingertips touched and the touch was warm and the callouses were real.</p>
 <p>And they relaxed, and the botanist felt that even as the darkness deepened, the light within her grew, and they both settled down to their knees.</p>
-<p>And finally, the mirroring was broken as the her that was not her slid her fingers up over her wrist and gently guided her hand down toward the soil, loamy and damp, and she knew, then, that she must spread her fingers and dig them down into the earth, there by the stairs which were a finger pointing at God such that she was in turn pointing at&hellip;at what? At the owner of that hand? At the owner of that finger?</p>
-<p>And as she did so, she felt that the dirt beneath her fingernails took root, that her nails themselves must have been rootlets and that her arm a stolon, that her whole body was the runner for some tree other than herself, for at that point, she took root.</p>
+<p>And finally, the mirroring was broken as the <em>her</em> that was not her slid <em>her</em> fingers up over her wrist and gently guided her hand down toward the soil, loamy and damp, and she knew then that she must spread her fingers and dig them down into the earth, there by the stairs which were a finger pointing at God such that she was in turn pointing at&hellip;at what? At the owner of that hand? At the owner of that finger?</p>
+<p>And as she did so, she felt that the dirt beneath her fingernails took root, that her nails themselves must have been rootlets and that her arm a stolon, that her whole body was the runner for some tree, some entity other than herself, for at that point, she took root.</p>
 <p>And her fingers crawled beneath the soil, and drank of the water there, and tasted the nutrients, and found purchase beneath the layer of loam and humus.</p>
-<p>And there, they curled around the God-stone, and indeed, she knew it as she felt it, amber with a kernel of pain embedded within.</p>
-<p>And even as the bark crawled up her arm, she saw her Doppelgänger stand and smile to her.</p>
-<p>And she felt herself take root as her bones became wood and her muscles loosened, unwound, and thus unbound began to lengthen, to strengthen, to arch skyward, seeking stars.</p>
-<p>And when the physicist awoke, he was the first to notice the botanist was gone. And when the psychologist awoke, she was the first to notice the new tree, where ferns fingered the air and fronds like hands reached out to touch them.</p>
+<p>And there, her fingers curled around the God-stone, and indeed, she knew it as she felt it, amber with a kernel of pain embedded within.</p>
+<p>And even as the bark crawled up her arm, she saw her Doppelgänger stand and smile to her. A dreamy smile; not kind, not cruel, not knowing, not ignorant. Just a dreamy, inevitable smile.</p>
+<p>And she felt growth accelerate as, bound now to the earth, her bones became wood and her muscles loosened, unwound, and thus unbound began to lengthen, to strengthen, to arch skyward, seeking stars, seeking God.</p>
+<p>And when the physicist awoke, he was the first to notice the botanist was gone. </p>
+<p>And when the psychologist awoke, she was the first to notice the new tree, where ferns fingered the air and fronds like hands reached out to touch them.</p>
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                 <p>Page generated on 2020-05-29</p>