Loner. ;aletta, gyps;

[Stillwater]

Stillwater

They tittered and tattered as old maids do, plucking painfully at his ears with their nonsensical chatter. It became more effort to hold a friendly face to them through the annoyance. His patience was thinning.

It wasn't their fault, not fully. What he really wanted was his goddamn cave back. Each day that passed out in this horrid meadow was another day he spent plotting his way back to Nerine. To run the damn place himself, if he must, since clearly no one else would do so. Weak bastards.

Ah, but that shy smile of the Moon reeled him back in, snatched his attention and temporarily buried the dark thoughts of Nerine. His ears tipped forward in interest, his eyes sliding to her lips. But alas, she denied the silent invitation in his eyes to enter the water, to join him. With a vague offer of "next time", she quieted.

He held his smile on her a long moment, imagining her lunar figure returning someday to fulfill that offer, glowing in the night like his very own lighthouse as she did now. Maybe she would come again, or maybe she would only be forgotten in time like a vague memory. They were such fickle things, memories.

The other was talking, prattling on about who knows what. Then it seemed she was inquiring to their names. Ah, little star. It is the very moon beside you, our Luna. He looked to the pale woman again, a wolfish grin on his face. The two of them were so fitting, the missing elements to his night. He was the darkness, and they the light. This was beginning to get fun.

Stillwater, he said smoothly, so easily. It was what mothers warned their children of; Be wary of the still waters, they would say. Don't stray too close, don't look too deep. Don't heed the whispers of the undines and water spirits, for not all were benevolent. Don't tangle with the Loch Ness. But even he knew that serpent was just a lazy old hag depending on her legend to frighten away the ones that would hunt her. Old and feeble.

He, on the other hand, was the hunter.

What brings two angels from the sky in the middle of the night? he asked, black hair still curled and dripping with the tears of the sea.