鹿 "deer" (ka), 檻 "cage" (ori)

when kaori is first created, she stirs with hunger.

it is a beast that loiters in the pit of her stomach, the dip of her abdomen—it forces her legs to stand and walk and sate it. it is the first thing she knows: a soft rumbling in her belly, like the rock and lull of the nightmares which swept her into existence. and so she, like the beast, wandered where her hunger took her, feasting and feasting and knowing nothing else but destruction and invasion. feed me, feed me! the hunger says, and she complies.

where curiosity finds her is the first crackle of flame.

oh, she thinks. oh.

it burns in her eyes like a dance; a slow, temptuous fire that stirs the things inside her besides the hunger that digs its roots into her being. it frightens the beast in her stomach, burns bright enough in her eyes to blind her, but oh. for the first time, kaori feels curious, like the flame speaks to her. like a fragment of herself has returned.

(the beast scurries away—far, far away)

renewed, she bounds forward, ever forward, always. the flames trail at the prints of her feet and billow smoke like the raging forest fires. where she finds comfort is in a ceiling of stars and the feeling of grass beneath her back. she chases fire and fire chases her—adventure must be here, with eons to lead her, to know her. the wind pushes her hair behind her as she walks, and her mouth breaks into a smile and then a grin—

adventure! she laughs, freely. the unknown! the undiscovered!

what she burns in her wake is nothing but fuel for more; the fires at her feet do not fade. what is the destination? she neither knows nor cares.

(to find her, follow the smoke)