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.