‘Moonlight in the gutter puddles, Sunshine on the flower petals’

There she stood, the rave of the new day singing at her fingertips as her hands stretched towards the watercolor sky. Her tan skin pulled over her weary bones creaking with protest, like a quill to parchment. Eyes of old English ivy, and skin a brown color from a light sun kissing. The whisper of the blowing wind, which never had a permanent place or direction, coursed across her arms forming chills as it took some comforting warmth with it on its endless journey. Her hair danced in the gusts, and shone with the brilliance of the sun, so blonde, it’s as if the two were one. Though the body showed weary and worn, the spirit could not be hidden in the infinite depths of green, the lack of pupil disconcerting. Standing as still as a branch in the snow, she listened, the life and living going on all around rose her spirits and heightened her mood incredibly. Pressing a small hand to her swollen belly, she looked down on humanity and smiled. At this moment in time, the world stood at peace, for the time being at least. Departing from the wooden steps at her toes onto the greenery of the grass and flowers, she slowly made her way to each individual one, paying to it the attention it would need to grow, and bloom, and eventually die. The cycle went on forever, and her last stop was to see off the old mighty oaks, and elms, or withering willows, flowers too, to see them off on the last part of their long or short lives, and to collect the seeds too which they produced to be reborn, just saplings again. With a quiet sigh, she turned, heading back into the den of a home. The rather large house stood grand and tall, a structure to impose all. The frame made of still living trees, intertwining themselves so close together, the tears of the water gods did not so much as seep through where they were not wanted. She lowered herself on to a moss coated chair made of jutted and oddly shaped roots as if a tree grew upside down, the leaves in the ground. As sharp as the twists and turns of the knarred appendages were, they provided a comfort around the cozy home, gentle when the woman was with child, but they were known to thwart sticky fingers, and coddling crooks, and would draw on blood a few times. They were all that was this shelter, this home, and they made it a perfect place for a child to grow, some times un-supervised. Resting a hand on her belly once more, she heaved with a breath like lead, and pushed all the air from her tiny, yet powerful lungs. She had chosen to give birth to this child the mortal way, and there was only one way to do that, return to the mortal realm, and wake the child in a hospital. He was after all, getting quite impatient. He’d spent the last six years in the womb of his mother, and wanted out. Though she thought she could still put off the time, maybe for another year or two, but what better day then today? The human world stood at peace for the time being, and her son was ripe to come into the world of that which he was being held from. In her dreams, she had found that he would grow quite handsome, but at the moment, all he was worried about was exploring the world just barely at his finger tips. He had already learned so much through her, but he yearned for more, a calling of destiny seeking him out, and she would halt it no longer. A sturdy oak spirit, the father to her latest children would accompany her down to the mortal realm, but that was till later. He had yet returned from unsettled business, some nymphs or sprites, stirring up a bit of chaos. She had a good chuckle at her lover’s expense when he had come home a tad disgruntled, his hair a complete contrast to what it should have been. The normally glossy green tresses that she admired so, stood out on his head, a stark purple in the morning sun. She later found out that he had been one of the less fortunate, where others’ shades where merely tinted or speckled with the outrageously bright, annoying colors. She only found humor in what the tiny creatures did, for these were at least benevolent ones, not some crooked scarecrow stealing children out from under their sleeping parents’ watchful eye, with just the tinkling of a silver bell, a changeling left in its place. No, these creatures were harmless to most extent, and only wished to lighten the wizened, stern attitudes of the Great Oaks. Her husband had been one of the fools to keep his humor from a sapling, and he still tried his luck time and time again. She’d caught him many times redecorating with clouds and wraith souls in the colored jars that the fairies made. Those poor souls, she’d set them free time after time, but here, in a universe parallel to the humans, time really meant nothing, just the passing of seasons, and the withering of the blooms. Another sigh escaped her pouted lips, and she shook herself from despair, already feeling the confusion from her son. He has yet to understand emotion, his innocence still pure. Standing, she busied herself by thinking of the craving of sweets she was getting. One of the many things that being immortal did not fend off, the odd cravings when with child. Moving over to the cupboard, she opened the drawers. Nothing, well that’s a lie, her husband kept inventory over everything, but there was nothing to her taste at this moment. Then she spied it, sitting just to the left behind the honey, on the very top self. A clay jar, bigger then her hand width wise, and about a foot long, the cookie jar. Some of the honey and oat bars would sit perfectly with some orange slices on the side. Stretching up on her toes, her arm extended to its longest length, she stretched out her frame, aiming for the jar on the highest self. Her long fingers just brushing the shelf surface and jar bottom. ‘Still too short.’ Placing her right hand on the counter, she levered herself up a little higher, and tried again. Her dress made of spider silk and fairy magic rode up her knee, tickling her as a thick tress of blonde escaped its confinement in the hair tie, and danced in her eyes. Huffing it out of her eyes, she didn’t feel the warm hand on hers till she felt the actual warmth of it permeate her skin. The hands of her partner rested at the small of her back, supporting her unbalanced figure. Skin the color of oak bark, and eyes a shade darker, her mate stood at her side. Lifting the jar effortlessly from the self, he placed it on the counter and turned to look at the woman. “I hid these for a reason.” His voice was bellowing and large, but soft and gentle at all the same. Contrast at its best. It was a cross between a growl, a chuckle, and silk on steel. She faced him with a dead-panned face and a spark in her eye. “And what might that reason be if you should be so bold to tell me?” Her voice a commanding thing, yet light and lithe, soft and quiet. Her grumble was met with a raised brow, and an amused chuckle. Curse those hormones, another thing that had yet to pass, the mood changes. ‘How he put up with me for these last six years, I’ll never know.’ She thought to herself, waiting for a reply. “Simply because, my love, you spoil that child rotten. No good will come from it, I haven’t the patience for a brat.” He lowered his face to be even with hers for he stood a full head higher then her. A grin cracked his strong features, and she couldn’t help but smile herself. He really did know how to bring her from a grotesque mood. Throwing her arms around his neck, she firmly planted a kiss to his still smirking lips. “Good morn my love.” She said after breaking it, not for air, just out of habit. Poking her in the forehead he replied “Good noon. Where’ve you been all day?” The rhetorical question was answered with a quirk of surprise.