Ivy lay stretched across the warm stone with one wing hanging lazily over the edge, sunlight pouring through the canopy above her in shifting green patterns. The rock overlooked the lower forest, where the leaves moved like slow water in the wind. Somewhere far behind her, deeper in the cliffs, the other Javans were talking loudly over one another again. She could hear them faintly, but not the words. Just noise. Just expectation.
Her eyes remained half-closed as she tilted her face toward the heat. One claw tapped absently against the stone. Then stopped. Then started again. After a while, she opened one eye and glanced toward the distant sky between the trees, as though she had almost remembered something important.