The air changed, from stale and musty, that had been passed through thousands of bodies, as Veiya stepped. It was bright and fresh. There was the taste of green in her mouth and the pressure of the water in the air on her lips. There was no sun in her demesne. A golden glow suffused the sky, tracking patterns of silvery sparkles, sometimes bursting into blooms of bright color, reds and yellows and oranges.
Her hand rested on the trunk of a tree. The crown jutted into the sky. Its trunk was so wide round that it took a minute to walk around it. When she rested against it, whispery whiskers tickled her gently and it shaped itself to a cradle around her.
There she rested, listening to the play of the black ocean as its waves lapped the shore. She was glad for the noise. There were no birds, nor other sound of life. She'd have to trade and ask for wildlife to populate her demesne and make it more whole. There was a little songbird that had perched on the tree outside her window, waking her from her bed, cuddled beside her husband. It trilled so expressively, she thought it had talked to her sometimes, had it only known the words.
She wouldn't ask Lady Shei for her birds. Best to stay far away from her. Corruption dwelled at the heart of her demesne, poisoning everything in it.