Snippet #3731

Ariella Moonbow

Night is well-advanced and so is the muted chorus of sounds that lends so musical a quality to the darkness in this part of the forest. She pauses a moment simply to listen and to savor the song of the night. There is a freshness within its familiarity in the darkness of this night whose stillness follows upon the disturbing violence of the past few hours. Behind her in the distance are the outsiders and the chaos they have brought with them into the forest. Behind her as well, now that the smell of the wet ground near the lake fills her nostrils and the sound of water brushing gently against stones greets her ears, is the disturbance she had felt within her habitual calm not even an hour earlier. The anger, her anger, remains and that will not be easily set aside. Nor should it be. But anger does not master her, at least not here in this place that is her home.

There is a rustling beneath the branches of the laurels that grow along the bank of the lake. They keep watch for her, her swans, and even now several waddle forward to greet her. She stoops and, as they approach her, extends her hand and, in affectionate greeting, brushes her fingers along the neck of each one in turn. She whispers the name of each as does so and then she rises once more to her full height. In spite of all else she feels, she smiles. Striding rapidly forward she leads the birds back to the lake. And as she enters its waters her form changes in aspect and shape, leaving aside that of a woman and taking up the graceful bearing of a swan.