LJ Idol: Week One: Here There Be Dragons

Cool water slipped off my fingers, the scents of many flowers and herbs permeated the air, the sweeping trees rained their falling blossoms on the water and my hair. I smiled, and waded deeper into the cool pool I sought solitude in. This place was healing to me, welcoming after the trial I had just faced. I was clad in nothing more than a light flowing white linen gown, a bathing gown reminiscent both of my Grecian ties and my elvan heritage. I was not modest tonight, I feared no intrusion, and the gown in question scarcely covered my breasts and back, though its skirt was long. The woods of this place had a way about them…rarely did any intruder unwanted by the grove keeper reach their destination unharmed. And so I sank into the pool, breathing in the scents of the place.

As I lay, I braided the night blooming jasmine into some fallen wisps of the flowering weeping tree, and added in sprigs of the herbs nearby, to form a long rope. I was careful with my choices, and it was rare that I took of the plants of this place. I never did so for pure pleasure; I planned to use this rope for a couple who had a handfasting soon to come. And I sang in my native Elvish language to the grove, softly thanking them for sheltering me once again.

A soft chuckle floated through the back of my mind, a rough dusky Irish brogue, and I sent a smile back where it came. My deities usually watched me here. They rarely saw me at peace. I finished my song of thanks, and the rope with it, but started singing again. I was unusually vocal tonight, and I hoped to craft something of it. The works I made here were always unique amongst all their fellows. But I must have slipped asleep in the water, because my song was cut off mid-note when I was jerked awake by the sense of someone unknown approaching me. I was alone unarmed, unarmored, and effectively naked in a pool of water.

( Cut for bulk. )

**This entry was written for LJ Idol**

LJ Idol: Week One: Winding Up

I sat, looking across my desk at my twin sister. We were speaking of the recent betrayal in the family…had just found out that the contamination to the nodes underneath her home, and mine, was ordered by one who had been loved as family by us. I watched the gathering folk some fifty-odd feet behind her, all dressed in the same familiar black leather that hung in my closet behind me. She couldn’t see them, of course, she was lounging in her own chair, merely watching my face. The one now acting against us, thanks to a perceived slight, had been my fiancee, and I was reeling from it. The gentleman lurking behind her and watching us both had followed my gaze the moment it left desk, and flickered over my sister’s face, and I nodded to the yard behind her.

“There will be war for this.”

( Cut for bulk, and for the triggers I know are applicable. )

**This entry was written for LJ Idol.**