It is hushed. The silence is acidic and sweet, a taste that rolls along her throat and down into her own, beating, bloodied core, not so unlike the rolling waterfall before her
very gaze.
It is made of luminous glass, too, and yet it dims in comparison to the smooth surface that boils with contained heat, the broiling flare that rises and falls in the woman's visuals.
The cavern is calming, tranquil, and she is reminded that she, too, was scalded by flames once.

She remembers umber lashes, she remembers cinnamon and chocolate plumage, she remembers russet and canary pearls. She had adored the son of the King with affection and regarded him with the violet's of reverence, for he was the Prince whom had danced within her dreams. Childish adoration had been her game, the young girl that trailed and tremors as a leaf in his sight. He had laughed at her, a light, musical chorus that caused heat to gather within her blooming dome, she had swooned after him as a moth to the light of a lamp.
And as all insects that dawdle about the burning surface too long, bump against warm electronic buzzes one too many times, she had been roasted within his revulsion at the demise of her mother. They had all scorned her, spat venom and contempt, but it was the displeasure of the Prince that caused her the most disorientation, for was he not her hero? Did she not adore him enough? Why was it, then, that he snarled and snapped and cackled with such vehemence at her very sight?
She remembers when she had sought the Prince out, she remembers the stony gaze of guards as branches are set ablaze, she remembers the chase, the unbearable heat that burns hair with a smoky scent that rises into the skies, she remembers his voice among the royal babes, loudest of all, and she remembers the pebbles thrown at her retreating and bruised hide afterward, the noise of rock slamming into wood as she hides her insignificant and scrawny frame in a broken and hollowed, rotten log of a long forgotten tree.
At least, the dryad and she shared a few things in common.

Indeed -
She had been scalded once.
And she never wished to be scalded again.

Seized from her recapture and reminiscence, the deep, scratchy baritone of the stranger's voice startles the woman once more into existence. She chides herself, for only fools allow themselves to fall so deep into their own minds that they cannot discern the past from the present once more.
She is a fool, though, is she not? The harsh murmur of her subconscious caws as the noise of crows within the echoing silence of her own mind.
The name. Irma. She tests it upon her tongue, yet the words do not slip forth into the still of the caverns.

A smile slips upon her maw, then, and she turns her violet eyes upon Irma once more. Liquid, lyrical, her voice returns.
"A lovely name.. Irma." The name is foreign upon the nightingale's maw, and she thinks, just maybe, she thinks she likes it well enough. It is simplistic, indeed, and yet, it fits the dragonback well.

When she finds interest in cerulean once more, she decides that the stranger has intriguing oceans. They are endless, she finds, as the sea stretches forth to the horizon, and amethyst twinkles his reflection with a thoughtful air. He has come close to the wall as well, now, and she is well aware of the calidity that hums forth as waves from his wintry coat. He is regal, she decides, and Irma and the stranger match well, in a odd, but not unwell way.
They are both crafted from snow and obsidian, from winter and night, and that is good enough for the nightingale, as she drifts once more into the comfort of the flames.
"Circuta." A title is offered gently in response, the nudging of froth upon the beach, and heavy lids fall down to cover her pearls.

Her mother had not fallen the day she was borne.
But she had been wise, to call her what she did, derived as it was, it's origins known well.
Water hemlock.

Maybe the nightingale had been damned all along.


Circuta</style>
who's the killer in the crowd -</style>