Ruby laid in bed. She gazed at the adobe walls of clay and straw that surrounded her. She had built this cottage on her own. Using what knowledge she had learned when she was still in the city, and learning the things she didn't know by sheer creativity. Her bed was sculpted as part of the wall, jutting out in a gentle curve of sand and clay. The mattress was made from found linen stuffed with bird down, collected from a variety of nests at the end of nesting season.
Little building projects helped to occupy her time here in the forest. What wasn't spent hunting, gathering, cooking, and building, that was. She had given up many amenities to live this lifestyle—but she had never been happier. She felt fulfilled.
She rose out of bed, pushing open the carved wooden door as she stepped outside to do her sun salutation. Meditation was important to her. It kept her serene and connected to the magic of the ecosystem surrounding her.
Her thin nightgown rippled in the breeze as she walked to her favorite meadow. Her long curls swirled around her, and the cool air caressed her skin in a most pleasant way. Leaves from nearby trees flicked at her as she walked, kissing her skin with droplets of morning dew.
As she felt a cool droplet of water fall between her breasts and drip down to her stomach, she fondly thought of her encounter with Ramzi earlier in the moon cycle. They had spoken of seeing each other again, but not for another two days. Her body shivered excitedly as she remembered his touch. His soft lips, his hard—
Swish.
Something rustled behind her, cutting her thoughts short.
"Hello?" She ventured, pausing. No response. She pressed onwards towards the meadow, nearly there now.
The sun was rising in a brilliant display of color and light. As she stepped through the last of the trees into the clearing, she gazed upon the brilliant purple and gold sky, streaked with bright orange at the bottom where the sun was just beginning to emerge.
The meadow was dewey and it glistened in the morning light. The ground was a mixture of soft grass and silky mounds of moss. Her favorite place to sit was near the middle to the north in the middle of a fairy circle.
The fairy circle did not, to Ruby's knowledge, have anything to do with fairies; It was a perfectly circular ring of bright blue iridescent mushrooms, about ten feet in diameter. When she was a child she thought fairies had planted the mushrooms, but later learned that fungi are connected, and the roots start underground in the middle, causing sprouts to form in a perfect circle as they grow outwards. She imagined the mushroom veins underneath her growing deep within the earth as she sat down in the middle of the circle.
She crossed her legs in a half lotus, resting her hands on her knees and straightening her back, looking up towards the sky. She was seated on velvety moss, cool and damp, that tickled her thighs.
She breathed in fully, counting to five, then exhaling to the count of five. She did this a few times, closing her eyes and enjoying the peace of the forest around her.
She stood up, exhaling and placing her hands in front of her chest as if to pray. She raised her arms and stretched them backwards, pressing her chest forward and feeling the cool air harden her nipples under her soft gown.
She folded her body forward, stretching her neck towards the ground, and letting her fingers graze the soft moss beneath her.
Usually when she performed her sun salutation, she cleared her mind of all thoughts except those of gratitude towards the universe. Today however, the movements brought back primal thoughts.
As she stood, her body folded over, she imagined Ramzi behind her, pushing his erection between haunches, taking her forcefully.
She exhaled, sliding her left leg back and her right knee forward, putting her weight on her right leg and her arms. She lifted her neck towards the sky, breathing deeply and trying to clear her mind. She stretched both legs behind her, then pressed her torso upwards, moving into sphynx position.
