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"Lucien? What did I tell you about running off on your own?"

Somewhat unsurprisingly, his son didn't answer him with more than a grin. And a splash, once Claude had drawn closer.

Leave it to any child of his to throw off his nice new boots just to stick his feet in the first likely looking stream that came along.

It wasn't even as if they'd gone that far out of town, but away from the roads, from the other sorcer-sorts and Aethies, even the breeze felt calmer, though it had hardly caught to much all the while they'd been walking. Claude being glad they had any at all, as hot as it had been the past few days.

The storm the night before had left lacy scatters of twigs and leaves and knocked down spider webs. Clean and still damp, the leaves overhead and tangled in the grass, they looked pieces of stained glass. And the trees, when they nodded, they sounded clear as harp strings with nothing else to cut the sound.

Out of farmland use and the whiles of any humans at all, the stream had been left so clear, so delicious looking. Just begging for some little blond imp of a boy to come along and kick his heels in it.

Well, one already had. Claude didn't bother with another sigh. He pulled his shoes off and laid them in the stones at his side, stretching lazy as he reached his own toes towards the glittering surface.

And promptly jerked back with a yelp. "Child of mine? That's /cold/."

"I know," said Lucien. "I think it feels nice."

"Maybe if you're part bear. I've always halfway figured, you know."

They had some teasing hums between them and Claude crossed his legs, feet now on the warm pebbles along the bank where they damnwell belonged.

"I think I got that from your side of the family," his son suggested after a while. "Anyway, why do you think it's like that? I don't hear anybody around."

"That wasn't tagging along?"

"Well..." The boy knitted his fingers in his hair, tugging himself a wingtip curl along his temple. "I think I'd only notice Nene if she was /gone/."

"And as for our new friends?"

"They couldn't have gone far. They know we have candy." To which, he nodded. Ever so sure of himself.

Ah, children. Children had gotten him this far with their self-assured beings. And children had found him what was really a rather strange clearing on closer inspection. The stream wore deeper through some places in the grass than others, showing shifts of rock, glints of moss and tree roots sneaking by. It divided the clearing just about cleanly in half.

Besides, on the edge of the forest easing back into being, a great, old ash stood.

Covered in tiny flowers. Pink and violet and hints of white. All of them, growing in streaks as if the bark had long ago turned to soil, though the tree seemed healthy and strong otherwise.

Besides.

"Papa," said Lucian, voice hushed. "There aren't any birds here, are there?"

"No," Claude answered after a moment. "It's just you and I and /a bunch of stinkers who ran off from us/."

"Oh, so that doesn't include me?"

"Child of mine."

They had a few more hums, there in the quiet of the clearing.

There, before something very strange and very faint began to creep along Claude's Aether lines.

It felt like being tickled almost. Anyway, it made him smile. Lucien too.

And next, there his son darted off again, racing over the grass and into the middle of the clearing, where he stood staring into the sky and whistling. Expecting a giant Gust to come sailing down in the form of a giant bird? It might just be that.

Welcome!

Note that anything your characters do in the clearing may result in posts back of things happening around them, even if these aren't exactly invited. Something's lurking around here, and it wants a snack!

Feel free to bring your own fairies, ghosts, mages and seriously confused regular people.

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((this is Urban Fantasy AU Summer, so she has true sight-- basically she can see the reality of things, and illusion won't even register. For whatever that's worth.))

There were people here.

Summer ducked her head and moved away from them. She didn't like people she didn't know-- none of them were nice to her and some of them hurt her eyes and anyway she much preferred being with Lars. He wasn't anything other than he pretended to be. Not that Lars was here. She was all by herself. She'd been in the park waiting for Ivy and Gina to come back from their walk, and now...

Oh, no. She stopped, put a hand to her mouth. They'd come back and she wouldn't be there. They'd think she'd run away.

She backed up quickly, and collided with something.

Edited 2013-05-16 20:20 (UTC)

Whirling around found her face to trunk with the great, old ash and all of its flowers.

Which there was, somewhere underneath all else that grew there, still an ash tree underneath. One as calm and fulfilled as ever a tree could have been, there for what had become of it in the many decades it had lived and grown and shared itself.

Summer could see the blossoms as blossoms.

But at the same time, through the same image.

There were what her true sight told her were... children?

Thousands of them.

Gleamy little points of light all looking out after her in curiosity.

So that wasn't exactly the breeze there stirring the petals closer her hair.

(OOC: remember how Shades reproduce via growing flowers? Other Aethies do that too.)

"Oh," she said, breathlessly, and put a hand up towards the children. They were so beautiful, like little sparks of glitter shaken on a dead-black piece of paper, sparkles and shimmers, beautiful like she wished sometimes she could be. "Oh, you're so pretty!"

She didn't know why she felt at ease with them-- perhaps it was because they were a tree, a pleasant tree, and because they were only curious, not malicious. So many people at home looked at her like they wanted to eat her up. The flower-children here only wanted to tug at her hair.

Which, sensing her assent, or perhaps playing off of Summer's curiosity, they did do that, one after another reaching after her, their petals shifting out of the close to natural shapes they had held and twining after her. They didn't /pull/, not too much, but they petted and stroked and seemed to be sniffing at the strands. At least, taking Summer in through some way that made their presences flash, fireflies there at the edge of dusk.

::We don't show a lot of People,:: they... said? Thought? Flickered? ::But, you see nice and you're pretty too!::

Which was all of them singing just seafoam touches out of sync about how and like what before they all came down to laughter again.

::And you can see us, so we should be nice back. Right?::

Summer blushed, and ducked her head, smiling, as they flickered around her. This was so much better than ordinary touch- not heavy or overwhelming at all, just little kisses on her skin, like "Thank you," she said. "For the compliment. I think you should be nice. My mama always says you should be nice to people always. Anyway, I'm very glad to see you. You're beautiful."

Edited 2013-05-17 03:40 (UTC)

"We /are/?" It went up around her, the gentlest joke, a flush of spring breeze touching out of place in the heady summer warmth, there before the laughter, bells and light sounds, after images of touch. All of this working together into something half a dance, half a chant. "Our parents put us here to grow. We haven't seen them in a while by your time, but the forest isn't lonely, you know. It's just not very talkative."

"To grow?" she asked, and on impulse spun just a bit, the way she would in a shower of petals. "Do you grow then? Like flowers? I will talk to you, while I'm here, only I don't quite know what to say. What shall I talk about?"

To which all the little flowers sang. Yes! They were growing. They used to be so small that not even bees would come to see them. In their infancy, they had been but points of light, between the ringlets in the moss, and the tree had been dearly afraid to let them leave besides.

It was a lot, and it rushed, perhaps flowed more in the sentiment, a symphony of being and images all water color gentle slipping back to one voice. ::Humans can't always stay. And that's fine. But, humans tell us about wonderful things~.:: That ending on trills of laughter and please.

It felt like being overwhelmed except not, like everything was happening at once but she could accept it and absorb it and spin in the water without drowning. Was this what being normal was like? "What sorts of wonderful things?" she asked. "I don't know of anything wonderful in my life-- well, except my family."

After, the flowers pulled back, or perhaps seemed to from a certain stillness they assumed. Were they whispering to one another? A sense floated in that they had something to share in their own tongue, but there were no words to match, only the depths of their centers shifting and growing. For one instant out of all the rest, Summer almost could have sworn- in that, they all flushed a little pink .

::Yes! That sounds extra wonderful. People families are different, after all. You don't usually live in trees together.::

(To some note of "usually" following.)

The little caress of "most of the time" made Summer giggle, and dance a quick foxtrot step. "I have a family," she said, brightly. "I have a mama and a papa and a brother and a sister, and a not-really brother and a not-really sister. Gina's only a not really sister for now, though. I think she and Ivy are going to be married."

She hoped so, anyway. She liked Gina, very much.

Besides their sounds, their flushing rise of happiness, the flowers came to another turn of whispers amongst themselves at that, questions for each other and for her turned as shooting stars and perfumes over their surface.

::We had heard People were particular about who is 'mother' and 'father and 'sister' and 'brother'." They came to say though. ::But, you're not? You think about Gina like she's yours. And us, you know, we wouldn't to most People have the same parents, but we're all siblings forever because the same tree watched over us when we were small.::

"Yes, exactly!" Summer said, and clapped happily. "My brother and sister don't have the same parents as me--" well, not the same combination anyway, they both shared at least one with her-- "but they're my brother and sister anyway because we were raised by the same people. Family's flexible. Or it should be."

The flowers giggled away. ::And you always have someone to play with this way, right?::

Which had them nodding somewhat softer away.

Not too much.

::There are a lot of People you know who don't think Gleams like us think. But, we do. We think your family sounds like a lot of fun, for instance.::

"They are," Summer said, solemnly. "And I don't always have someone to play with but I always have someone to talk to me. If I want to play with someone I can play with the cat." Still, it could be a bit lonely, and she reached up, tentatively, to touch a flower. "I wish you could come back with me."

RP Time? You betcha!

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