Stary Night, open.

Sera woke up to sunlight streaming through the thick, stone-set, stained glass. As she sat up on her bed of stone and stretched her arms above her head and let her wings cycle through their forms, her nightgown disintegrated at the seams. The three or four blankets and her pillow all crumbled to dust as she pushed them to the side, leaving only a few dried-up feathers in their wake. She scowled at all of this, even though she was used to this happening. She pulled out a stone chest from beneath the bed. If she had used cut wood, that would have fallen apart as well. She pulled out an old cloak—a gift from an old witch, who was probably dead by now, nearly a millennium before. It was enchanted to last a very long time. She also pulled out some clothes which hadn't aged as much as the bedsheets, as no air had stirred inside the box, though she needed air even during her long sleeps. The black pants and tunic, the leather boots and bag, and the once-colorful leg wraps had all turned to nearly the same beige color. They were soft to the touch, fragile now with age. As she put on the tunic she also pulled several feet of hair through the neck hole. Her wings, on the other hand, fit neatly through the slits in the back. No matter how much the fashion had changed, hair that long had to go. She didn't have anything to cut it with now, so she tied it in thick knots. A few strands still hung loose against her face, but they didn't bother her too much. Examining herself in the still-intact mirror, she sighed and decided to find a hairdresser when she found a tailor. It wasn't too cold for leg wraps, but they weren't exactly necessary. She put them on anyways.

She did some general keeping of the tiny shrine she had built. Experience told her that the better she kept it, the less sorrow she accumulated, and the shorter time she'd have to sleep when she came back to it. She pulled plants out of the cracked floor and filled it with stone shims. She pulled out the longer grass from outside the inward-opening stone doors at the top of the stairs. It sort of looked like a jungle temple, as overgrown as it was with weeds and trees to either side. But as long as no one tried breaking anything, they wouldn't get much out of raiding it. She looped her bag carefully over one wing and shoulder, letting it rest upon the other. It hung as nicely on the back as it did at the waist, but she put it in the lower position before connecting her pitch-black cloak with the ornate silver clasp. She hovered and flew straight up to the top of a tree on her insect-like wings. She admired the sunset for a few moments before gliding back to the ground on feathery wings. She then returned them to their faerie form and folded them, hiding them underneath the cloak. Her wings were too stiff to be traveling above the trees for very long, and they were pretty useless at ground level in the forest.

Sera walked in one direction for a while until she heard the slight sound of a bow twanging in the distance. Just once. She set off in that direction and saw a woman skinning and gutting a deer. She pushed the cloak back again and hovered close to the ground, moving closer to observe her. The woman took to her task like a ritual, complete with the meditation at the end. The sudden running was a bit of a surprise, but Sera brought out her wings again and half flew, touching the ground only slightly with every step, pushing off tree roots with her feet as needed. Sera followed her from a distance as she moved toward what might be civilization. Civilization was necessary, even though it brought sorrow. Suddenly the woman stopped and crouched, then ran up a tree like a squirrel. Sera stopped as well, though not as gracefully, and watched her as she nocked an arrow and aimed in her direction. At first she doubted that the woman could hit a target this far back, but then she remembered how the deer.  It didn't matter, though.  The woman couldn't see Sera nearly as well as Sera could see her.  Sera hovered backwards a little ways, then slowly went off the path, rising up to the level of the hunter, making no noise.  She circled around until she was just out of the angle of the hunter woman's vision.

She took a deep, silent, yoga breath before speaking, her hands raised in the air in a submissive fashion.  "Please, don't shoot.  I'm unarmed!" she said, letting moonlight hit her from a hole in the canopy.  She was ready to fall straight down in case the woman shot at her anyways.