Tekka padded swiftly along the Outer Path.  She kept an eye on the stony ground; her bare feet were tough, but the bramble-whips that lay scattered on the edge of the wilderness were tougher.  Most of her attention was on her surroundings.  Anything could be hiding in the shadowy woods to her left.  The field of standing grain on her right might look tame, but provided even better cover.

A flash of motion caught her eye, and she froze in place, still as stone. There.  Not only motion, but color. White where no white should be, amidst the roots of an ancient guardian tree.

Perhaps she could risk a quick look.  Tekka's head moved slowly, smoothly, as little like a prey-animal as she could manage.  Nothing but the erratic twitch of white.

Warily, she stepped forward, her package of cloth and spices from the market clutched in one hand like a club.  Amidst the gnarled roots of the tree nestled a snugly-wrapped bundle.  A bundle in a very distinctive shape.

"Oh, no."  Tekka moved closer, a different shade of worry unsettling her gut.  "Your poor mother, dearheart, leaving you here for the wolves."

Tekka knew, everyone knew, that not every child could be raised.  There was only so much food, and a family could afford only so many mouths. There was no shame in leaving a baby as an offering to the Wild Wood.  But there was much sorrow.

Tradition dictated that the mother bring her baby to the forest's edge, that she take ten paces past the guardian-trees, and lay the child in her blanket on the ground.  This child was hardly a thumb's-width inside the boundary of the wood.

"Your mother must have wanted you found, little one."

She tucked her package into the folds of her garment and knelt, careful to stay on the path.  One hand slipped beneath the tiny neck, cool from the earth, the other under the slightly damp bottom.

"I have no children.  You will come home with me, and make my heart glad."  The baby fit snugly into the crook of her arm, its little head padded, a loving mother's defense against the cold ground, hoping against hope that another woman would find and take up her precious child.

"Come, look on your new mother, my baby.  Let me see your face.  Are you hungry?"  Tekka gently parted the protective blanket.  Her warm brown eyes met reptilian green ones.

She froze.  This time, she had no choice.  Warmth fled her body, starting with her bare toes, licking up her legs, her thighs, her belly, an icy shadow of flame folding itself around a well-seasoned stick.  She drew breath to scream, but her ribs had already taken the cold solidity.

Her life poured out though her eyes, into the eyes of the infant.  The child wriggled her now-immobile arms; unable to blink, Tekka saw, rather than felt, the motion.  The soft white blanket fell away, and the slender snakes that served the child for hair butted impatiently out of confinement.

The baby cooed happily into the statue's blank, marble eyes.

"There you are, my little one."  A lush-figured woman stepped out of the shadows, her ropy hair writhing about her shoulders despite the still air. "Such a clever little girl.  Barely a week old and already hunting."  She scooped up her smiling infant, and flowed back under the shelter of the trees.

Tekka stood, white where no white should be, the empty crook of her cold arm open to the sky.