Chapter Text
The sky was still a blue-black color, but the stars were already twinkling, and the moon shone like a massive silver-white celestial body. Small owls were already fluttering between the branches hunting moths and similar critters.
Bigger beings were stirring up too: a nymph unravelled herself from a tree hollow, (she slept in it during the day), and climbed on top of it and sitting down regally, she began to survey what was going on.
Down below, a witch girl, her hat and skirt bright red, was dancing among the grasses and ferns, sparks fluttering around her fingers. A satyr, barely older than the girl, was watching her from the shadows, clearly intent on making his move, later or sooner.
The nymph frowned in thought, her pupilless eyes narrowed: she knew the girl’s parents; the fae musician’s panpipes might charm the mum, (they might), but the father, the warlock of the family, will not be amused.
Something briefly came between the moon and the forest below; the nymph looked up, and sure enough, the magpie twins, (fae shapeshifters, actually) were at it – playing half-tag and half-toss-the-ball with each other. The nymph could not quite see what the magpies’ prize was, but she could make an edu-cated guess… and she did not care for the twins, in fact…
Something like a gust of hot, dry wind briefly ruffled the leaves and needles of the forest trees – apparently, the great dragon was feeling restless tonight. The nymph looked down – the witch girl’s parents were taking her home, (quickly too – no one could stand up to the dragon if it was feeling restless).
The nymph looked up – the magpie twins were gone: even their arrogance could not stand up to the dragon’s wrath…
The nymph frowned: the disturbed foliage had not settled yet, and she could see in the distance… a human house; an ordinary human house…whose windows were brightly lit: someone was living there.
…Someone new was living there, that is – once someone lived there already, but that was a while ago, even by the standards of the fae, but now the house was inhabited once again.
The nymph frowned in thought. The dragon aside, winter was coming in a few months; autumn was coming in a few weeks, and she needed to find herself a new home for the cold time of the year or else warm and improve her old one…
Testing the human home to live sounded like a good first idea: the nymph jumped from her perch, landed on the ground and kept on running, (and nymphs can run very fast indeed, when they want to).
This decision might have saved her life: a huge reptilian eye, set in a massive reptilian head, focused on her old perch, attracted by her movement – but the nymph was already gone, running down below, where the trees hid her even from a dragon’s gaze…
TBC