Moonlet is a wanderer by nature; by the very heart and soul of her. Or perhaps, because there is nothing better to do than point her nose in any direction and let her feet follow. That has always served her best from the moment she let go of her mother’s teat with fresh milk still dribbling down her mouth and began to wander off.
At first it was just in ever widening circles, like ripples on a pond. Next, she grew bolder and stole off for hours at a time until her mother came calling. Then she just took off one day without so much as a goodbye because goodbyes are so final and she knew that she’d see her mother again some day.
She didn’t need precognition or magic to tell her that, the notion just lay deep in her heart. Tucked away safe, called on only when she needed a reminder to keep on going on. Those moments came rarely, even if she did feel the thorns of loneliness needle her like getting caught in a sticker-bush.
So she is off on adventures that promise to be grand in their own ways and might not be, but she’ll make the best of them regardless. Like now, how she weaves through the forest in awe of the trees that have grown so tall overhead. It must have taken them so long! Centuries, she guesses whenever she pauses to study one.
Sunlight and shadow chase one another beneath the gnarled boughs in a timeless dance. Sometimes, they twine together in sinuous streams that spin and shake and pass over her brown skin and black hair, highlighting the ordinariness that coats her. Moonlet just plods along, content and smiling and oh so oblivious to the sun beginning to set.
She doesn’t take note of it until she realizes there is less light about and much more darkness abounds. The girl pauses for just a moment, not overly scared at being in the big bad forest all by herself but curious as to which direction she should go in now. Towards the faint smell of water or towards that faint shine of light that beckons from a distance?
Moonlet opts for the faint shine in the distance. Even from afar, it reminds her of starlight - so far away and unreachable but oh so beautiful. She trots towards it, heedless of the twigs that snap underfoot and the mulch that crackles at her passing. The girl was never much of a quiet thing, always like a summer storm blowing about the land.
Just like she blew into the clearing just as he started to sing. It called to the loneliness inside her own heart and made it worm it’s way up into her throat on a sob that she choked back, spluttering out a single word - “Beautiful.” Moonlet fell under his spell faster than she could piece together the starlight of his wings as the glow that led her there.
With no mermaid’s scale or cat’s paw to ward off his magic, she fell and kept falling into the painful beauty of his song until she stood close enough to touch her nose to his without having to stretch forth her neck. She couldn’t quite bring herself to touch him in case her lips on his skin would stop the song, but the glimmer of tears surfaced in the depths of her brown eyes as she stared at him.
@[Indius] ❤️