Morning For One

[Aulhauer]

In the middle of the room on the bed out of wool and hay that he made for himself, he laid on his back, a blanket wrapped up to his chest. His eyes were peacefully shut, and his face was turned to his right, calm and almost smiling. The slight heaving of his chest as he inhaled and exhaled, the quiet way of the blanket as it shifted under the most minute of muscle twitches, the warmth of the morning creeping through the windows. But Aulhauer would awake soon. His skin glowed a soft yellow, a warm yellow light unlike the incandescence of sodium, but like the decadent lighting of Syliran hotels. The light was pulsating; Ethaefal researchers would call it a pulsing beacon, echoing both Aulio's and Syna's heartbeat, but no one has yet proved this. If one puts his ear close to Aulio's chest at this time of great marveling and daring, he would know the researchers were right. If one would look closely enough, he could see particles of light floating from from his skin, exploding into non-existence only a few centimeters into its flight. It was as if his skin were evaporating into light. Soon, it would be. As the pulsing increased in frequency and the light grew more intense, Aulio woke up. He opened his eyes. Outside the house, the sheep bleated in high, flat notes, a foreboding forecast from the fauna. The flock moved farther from the house, it could have almost been panic but non-animals might hear differently. A blast of light immediately filled the house, rushed in a raging flood through the window and filled the fields outside. Anyone who would have been staring at the whole episode could have lost their sight. Aulhauer, now fair and without windmarks, rose from bed and arched his back inward, keeping his legs under the blankets. He raised his hands high and stretched, slowly slipping out of the linen and onto his wooden floor. Stretching his shoulders, he walked around the house, a small 60-square-meter house with barely any furniture. The pulsing from his skin has now subsided to a faint outline around his body, and it would soon disappear. He opened his drawer and took a shirt and a pair of workpants. He put on both items of clothing, being especially careful with his shirt so he does not tear it again on his Ethaefalan horns. He took a robe, which was hanging to the floor from one of the short bedposts, and slung it around his shoulders. He looked like a porcelain-skinned demon overlord, etched on one of the human's archaeological finds. The sheep were not bleating anymore. In fact, they trotted to Aulhauer's side with their little lamb legs as soon as he stepped outside to the pasture beside his house. Mornings for Aulhauer would usually start with him herding the sheep to a field, somewhere farther away from Sunberth than his home.