The Body is hungry. She eats.

Her hands move over hot seaflesh and scorched vegetables, raw and grasping, as visceral and impatient as a drowning woman's first gasp of air. Halfway through a bite there's a pause and a regretful glance downwards at the fish, a muttered half-prayer, and then a renewal of the feast. She's lost so much, and that includes every restraint that stands between her and her appetite. 

It includes, too, the barriers between consciousness and dreams. It takes a while to notice that she's gone - monastic training has not only made her capable of falling asleep while sitting cross legged, but she can do so with her eyes open. Slumping over or closing one's eyes would get one smacked by the master's broom - it was meant to teach discipline and the denial of bodily impulse. Daofei was always better at the appearances of virtue than virtue itself.

*

"Is there space by your fire, friend?" asked a voice as old as forests.

The stranger wears a dark and ragged cloak and a beard like a cloud devouring a mountain. His face is run through with his wrinkles and his brow sits heavily over his blue eye - the one that is not concealed behind the dark leather eyepatch. His age sits heavily on him, though seemingly none of it rests upon his body. He is still tall and he is still strong, barrel chested and muscular. All of his years seem to weigh only on his spirit and his aura of melancholy pierces as deeply as his stare.

Upon his shoulder is a raven. Its feathers are a blue passing into black, and its eyes are a blue passing into white, an electric tattoo of circuitry around the corners of its gaze. It twists and turns its head from side to side, watching with one eye and then the next filled with an eager curiosity.

The old man strides closer - it feels like he should shuffle, should limp, but his flesh refuses to give in to the weight of his soul - and takes a seat. Slumped half in shadow and in a rough and ragged cape, he holds out a begging bowl.