Looking out over the edge of the rocks, the ground dropped and curled away from her. The stationary waves of mountain, the peaceful turnings of Earth in her billion year's sleep - these hills melted into Catskills and New York and America and horizon. Her awareness spreading like roots, she felt everything that was below her: the tiny empty spaces, trapped air bubbles in a suspension of layered rock, the insects and plants, blind and vulnerable, and the hidden danger under a blanket of unconsciousness. All of this fed and nurtured her. Looking out at the felled and blackened trees, she knew that someone had waged a war here. The wind against the trees, the Earth against herself, darting elves and Civil War soldiers hiding in the blueberry bushes. This was a place where she felt nothing. She knew she was living, but she was far away from life, and the power of owning this place welled up inside of her and poured out from under her fingernails. She could see herself here, dancing naked around the burning trees, a different person a thousand years ago. She could understand herself here, understand how easy it would be to forget her name and turn into stone, the eventual sludge of decaying leaves blurring her features. Everything was draining out of her as if she was broken and torn open. She had to suck at the pockets of life down beneath the rocks in order to stay alive. She'd been here so long, too long, not moving or blinking or breathing. She could feel it happening. She wasn't afraid. So many years from now, the Earth, standing and stretching and looking around, and her, waking up along with all the others, clawing, half-buried, towards light and air. For now, her blood coagulating, her vision spiraling in on itself, her mind closing like a book, her bones so settled into inactivity that from marrow radiating out towards skin, she was slowly willing herself into stone.