With him in my arms, the world was bright and shining and blue, just like I’d always seen it in picture books. When I had my mouth to his, nothing in the world could go wrong. I was suspended in the place I was most comfortable; I was wrapped in the shrouds of the deep darkness that I had come to call ‘home’. His warm body was pressed against my chest, my arms secure around his torso. My cheek was against his neck; I was breathing in his soft scent, filled with life and promise. It filled my head with ecstasy to know that he’d be dead soon.

This boy, he had red hair the colour of poinsettias and flesh akin to butter cream. His eyes were blue—shocking, cold, prismatic blue eyes. These eyes were wide with fear and cradled in tiny red veins that coloured more like blood with every passing second. He pushed against me, but my hold was steadfast. He flailed, disturbances in the water clinging to his arms. It reminded me of wings, but wings wouldn’t help him now.

Eerily haunting music wafted through the trees, weaving between the branches like beams of the reigning moonlight. The night was dark. The air was quiet. All except the slow song that resembled a beautiful soul in mourning.

Following the stream of notes through the skinny forest trees, the music came from a lone figure sitting on a large rock near the edge of a small, shimmering lake. Said figure had long white hair that shone silver in the moonlight. Thin, wiry, and holding an obsidian violin against its shoulder, it was hard to discern the exact gender or age of this person. Still, the music played could have only come from hundreds of years of skill-toning. The music picked up its pace, now, seeming to grow desperate in its yearning. Yearning for what, though, was still a mystery.

Suddenly, the music stopped. A breeze whispered through the forest, bringing a message into the clearing. The violin was lowered, the figure straightened, its long hair falling back against the rocks to reveal a frame that was all too male. “I know,” he murmured, looking longingly at the water that was just below him. Raising a pale hand, he ran his skeletal fingers through his hair, seeming to admire it as though he hadn’t really seen it before. Letting it fall back to just below his shoulder blades, he took a deep breath and picked up the black violin again. Adjusting it against his shoulder and chin, he placed the horse-hair bow against the strings again. The strings along the bow were the same striking white-silver colour of his hair.

The haunting music started again.
A loneliness called through the woods, beckoning for someone.
Anyone.

Come save him.

She had set out while the midges were still biting, and as a result was now itching to scratch the raised red bumps on her legs. The night air along the canal had been muggy and full of flying insects. It was cooler in the forest. She liked riding here even after the other kids had warned her that the forest was full of spooks. She was far too practical for spooks. Her tatty wicker basket had a flashlight in it until she’d taken some string and tied it to the handlebars. The batteries would probably run out soon and then she’d have to find her way back by moonlight.

The music that had been on the edge of her hearing stopped and started again. It wasn’t going to be a threat. Not that music in itself was threatening; the people playing it, on the other hand, could be. Stay away from those who play rap music on boomboxes, she’d been told, although she’d never been told why. They’d never been that threatening. Of course, people who played classical music could be threatening in a different way; they could, for example, call CPS on a ten year old who’s been allowed to wander the forest by herself late at night.

At least she had a helmet on over her white cornrows.

As the music got louder she dismounted and walked her bike along the path. The man… if it was… yes, the man, had the same colour hair as her. It didn’t look to be the result of age either. Except his was reflecting the moonlight down past his chest and still glowing. Hers was under a do-rag under her helmet, keeping the bait for taunts under wraps from those who might taunt her.

“You play nahce,” she said quietly, a little ebonic twang running under the Bayfield accent. It probably said something about her life that she saw nothing odd about this scene: a ten year old all alone and covered in midge bites and bruises, dressed in summer shorts and a tank top and shivering a little in the night breeze. Talking to a young man with oddly coloured hair who was also in the woods at night, playing the fiddle as though his life depended on it.

Loreley could tell that someone was about to happen on his little clearing before it actually happened-- ten-year-olds weren't that stealthy, after all. His playing abruptly stopped when she spoke. In fact, judging by the grimace on his features, it looked like the girl's voice amounted to nails on a chalkboard in his ears.

"What are you doing here?" He demanded of her, turning around. There was annoyance playing around the repulsed aspects of his features-- clearly, he wasn't too happy. This expression faded, though, when he noted exactly who was there. A little girl. It was a little girl. He chuckled to himself, setting his black violin aside and sliding down the face of the rock to land with a quiet splash in the shallow water. He fished out a blue tail coat, shaking the sopping wet garment out before slipping it on. The shaking didn't do too much. "Should you be wandering around alone, little girl?"

She jumped back at the viciousness of his question and folded two skinny forearms up over her chest. A classic defence pose in boxing, but it wouldn’t have done her much good: the man had at least a foot on Josephine.

“Tina said I could,” she replied with all the defiance she could muster. “She’s my foster mom.” For all the bravado, she was trembling like a leaf. A slightly damp leaf since the man had been less than considerate about where he was shaking his coat. She didn’t like being laughed at and had to stop herself from scowling. Scowling was sass. Staring wasn’t, so she made do with that instead.

“Why’re you practising violin out here? Is it so nobody can hear you? Because if I could play like that I’d be doing concerts or something, I dunno. Your jacket’s wet. Aren’t you cold?” Josephine stopped to pause for breath and to unfasten her helmet, which she took off and tucked away in her basket.

Holy shit this girl talked a lot. Loreley nearly gawked-- but gawking wasn't really something that kelpies did. So he merely grimaced and sat down on a rock instead, staring at her while he was eye level. She was staring too. Snorting, he leaned back on his hands and kicked at the water, sending sprays of it in her direction-- accidentally, of course. Everything was an accident with Loreley. "I don't know. I guess I like it better when people come to me." He answered her, a feral smile spreading over his lips. He was in no hurry tonight-- even though he had been waiting a while, things were not fun when he didn't take the time to draw them out.

"And I'm not cold. Aren't you?" He flicked water towards her general vicinity again. "You're not so dry yourself." He smirked. At least the little girl had enough wits about her to wear a helmet-- no one wanted little girl brains on the forest floor. His smile grew a little as he drew idle circles in the water with his toe.

“Because you keep flicking me with water. Duh. If you di’n’t I wouldn’t be wet.” Ah yes, one of the cardinal rules of childhood: if you act like a child you can expect to be treated like one. And flicking water wasn’t something Josephine considered mature. It was the sort of thing she’d expect from a little boy, not a – she looked him up and down – teenager? It was hard to judge his age when he looked unlike anyone Josephine had ever seen before.

She shuffled her jelly sandals and crossed her arms over her chest. This man was weird. He didn’t answer questions properly and when he smiled, he smiled mean. Still, the stranger danger videos said that the really weird men would try and be your friend. The fact he was so mean had to count for something in that area.

"I guess not." Loreley answered her as if she'd just perfectly explained Schrodinger's Cat. He gave her a reasonable sort of smile and shrugged, idling to absently flick water directly in front of him, and not at her. So maybe Loreley was slightly childish.

Or... more than slightly childish.

Loreley was definitely not trying to be this little girl's friend-- he didn't really try and make friends with those he knew were probably going to have their lungs filled with water some time soon. "So, little girl, what's your name? Or would you rather me keep calling you 'little girl'?" Personally, he found the term slightly degrading and a little too cutesy-- if a name could be degrading and cutesy all at once.

“Beatrice,” she replied promptly with the first name that came into her head. “What’s yours?” Tina was no fan of sass but she hadn’t managed to beat out Nana Bo’s life philosophy as ‘do as you would be done by’. It extended to introductions, too. You were meant to introduce yourself and then ask the other person’s name. Anything else was rude, but Josephine was quickly coming to the conclusion that this was quite a rude young man, despite a certain amount of niceness-that-isn’t-really-nice-but-is-kinda-charming (known by people above the age of ten as charisma).

Josephine pulled the helmet from her basket slowly, as if she’d just woken up and was still half-asleep. The stranger danger videos were screaming at her from a long long way away. The helmet managed to make it as far as her head where it rested, unfastened. Please be nicer, Josephine sent out. Please don’t treat me as a kid. The stranger danger videos screamed even louder, pointing out that not being treated as a kid was exactly what she didn’t want.

"Beatrice," he stated with the severity of an executioner reading out a victim's name. A smile broke that facade and he turned that smile to a grin for her. "Beatrice is a much better name to be calling you by than 'little girl'." Loreley assured before offering his own name as consolation. "I'm Loreley." He pronounced the name Lor-eh-lei, better known with phonetic symbols, but inaccessible on a laptop and improper knowledge. He stuck a hand out to her. Niceness-that-isn't-really-nice-but-is-kinda-charming indeed. "Pleased to meet you."

Perhaps Loreley was just a handshake away from dragging this girl to the bottom of the lake, or perhaps maybe it was on the account that they had names to call each other by that Loreley was -indeed- being nicer. By no means had he heard her private wish, but then again... Kelpies were often very good at discerning secret wants.

“Pleased to meet you too,” Josephine replied primly without taking Loreley’s hand. She’d never been introduced to the concept of shaking hands before. In her grandmother’s circles, you hugged. Her foster siblings would all touch knuckles so she tried that, brushing her own knuckles against his very lightly. It showed up once again how very pale the strange man was.

“I should git goin’ now,” she said slowly and fastened her helmet. “Tina don’t want me back too late.” She kept eye contact with the man for as long as possible as she swung a leg back over her bike. When she’d sent out her wish, there’d be no familiar flicker in his eyes, as if he hadn’t even heard it. It was… odd. Yes. Very, very odd.