Jenny: Indigo, and the Varnished Sun

The Guttersnipe broke off her whistling as she worked and looked down at Domitia. Frowning, she lifted herself higher on the branch and leaned out, straining to listen. She could hear the soft breathy mutter of the wind barely stirring the leaves around her, and the sudden, sharp call of a mare in the valley. But Domitia was right: those noises were only stabs in the fabric of a great quiet which had quenched the valley from end to end. But underneath that, like a sleeper under a pile of rugs, she could feel the heartbeat still throbbing - or maybe it was only her heartbeat, or maybe it was Ambrosius' that had somehow got out and was throbbing in the whole valley now. She was not ever sure. It was like the feel of a thunder which is still too far away to hear. A deep, hot blue sky stretched immovable overhead, the sun burning the coolness out of the wind: a heavy day with no promise of rain, only the heat and the mutter of air.

"It is very quiet," she agreed, relaxed back onto her heels on the branch. She shifted and sat down, swinging her legs in midair. "What's more, it is dry." She turned an apple over in her hand, frowned at it, and dropped it into the basket.