Down by the River. [Itori; Private; Recruitment]

A wooden door creaked open in the middle of the small village atop a mountain. Steel-padded boots clanking over the wooden floors before mushing onto the ground, weighing down on the dirt beneath. A mantled figure with blonde-hair, sharp features and a chin beard had stepped out of a small house more akin to a hut than anything else. A middle-aged woman with short black hair and soft features was trailing behind him, stopping to stand in the doorframe. In a nightgown, holding a small glowing lacrima, she reached out in a motion to give it to him.

Quiet voices could be made out, bantering over the following path the mantled man had to take. The female voice edging him to take the magical flashlight, he refused. With a sigh, the woman stuck her hand back into the house and the lacrima's light dimmed until darkness.The mantled man's arm rose to the woman's face, gently caressing it once before moving to pull a hood over his face. Clear words could be made out. "I will be back, Amelia." Sad, but strong eyes looked at him. "Stay safe, Lyserg." The now hooded figure turned around and took off, out into nature.



The full moon silently pierced the darkness of night-time. Illuminating the forest decorating the hills, surrounding the small village. Lyserg swiftly and with determined step trudged over leaves and dirt, outlined paths directing travelers down the leveled mountainside. Trees bending over to give shadow from the blue moonlit sky. Perfect conditions to travel. Only nocturnal animals crept through the woods, and most were afraid of humans. No one to see him, no one to watch.

It was a bright night. While the day was long gone, and would take long to return, the full moon was covering the land in a cloak of pure silver, and the clouds had parted to not cast holes in this cloak. In short, even though it was night one could still easily find their path, guided by the pale rays. This abundance of light had caused the forest to become livelier than it usually was: nocturnal creatures were prowling, crawling, or flying about, using this rare opportunity to explore their homes, finding new places to hide when chased, or finding prey to chase.

In this scenery, though, all these creatures still avoided the other source of light, the one that came from a specific part of the landscape: the village that had been erected by humans. The light of the moon was a blessing for those who lived in the forest, but the light of civilization was to be avoided. And even those humans who weren't in the village, those very few who were travelling through the night, would not see any critter or creature in their path. The animals that had lived in the same area as the humans for a while had quickly learned that being spotted by humans was not a good thing. They snuck, crept, and ran away from humans and their settlements, to continue minding their own business in a safer location.

Owls, mice, wolves, they all moved through the night, them and other creatures as well...including foxes.

The silver light of the moon fell down on two fox ears covered in smooth white fur, which twitched as their owner warily surveyed her surroundings. She had been tracking her prey for a long time now, but never really felt like she was getting closer. She wasn't losing her quarry, but they were moving too fast for her just to catch up. And now she was in the middle of this forest growing atop the hills. She wasn't yet exhausted, but she had already been moving for quite some time. However she would keep moving until she found what she was looking for.

And so she stalked further through the night, her one tail trailing after her, a streak of pure white amidst the green and brown of the forest. It was good weather, and she was making good progress. The moon was guiding her path, and there was nothing hindering her as she kept moving forward. The only downside was that her quarry also benefited from this weather, but she would just have to put more effort into this.

As she walked on the girl only stepped onto the roads of humans occasionally, afterwards once again disappearing into the forest. She did not want to be seen by the humans if she could help it. They could not help her right now, and she did not want to deal with the complications that humans created merely by being humans. By being intelligent and self-award creatures. She had nothing to fear from the wilderness here, and she was used to travelling through such places. For her the forest was a more comfortable place to be than any of those roads.

However even as she kept walking she still came no closer to her prey. Tonight was not giving her any advantage in distance than any of the other nights. And there had been plenty before this one. It was time to give up for the rest of the day, and prepare for the next. It was better to spend the rest of her energy ensuring that she would sleep well and safely than to keep walking.

As fortune would have it she picked up the sight of something glimmering in the distance, the silver of the moonlight reflected as if by a mirror. Judging that to be a good sign the girl hastened as she stepped forward, aiming for that new goal, that glimmering in the distance. It soon came closer, until the trees parted and she found what she was looking for: a lake. It was not a big lake, but a lake nonetheless.

Her travels had left her unable to cleanse herself as often as she would have liked.she was not going to let this opportunity slip by. No humans were nearby: she checked using her sharp senses, but she could find no trace of them. They were all in their homes, enjoying their dreams as they waited for the sun to return and banish the night. No creatures here threatened her either: they did not fear her like they feared humans, but they also did not hunt her. She knew how to keep them from attacking, to have them walk away to busy themselves with other concerns. She should be safe here.

Removing her clothing until her bare body was bathing in the moonlight she stepped forward, exchanging the silver rays for the water of the same colour. Water, usually clear as crystal, now a silver mirror reflecting the moon high above. She slowly waded deeper, although the water never got much higher than her navel. This was not some giant water body, with suspicious contents and unknown mysteries. This was merely a place where the river slowed down, caught its breath, before resuming its endless and unchangeable journey to the ocean.

Once she was in the middle of the lake, her tail now glistening from being submerged in the cold liquid, she came a halt, staring upwards as she looked at the moon. Several minutes passed before she began to softly sing, revealing that voice that she almost always kept hidden. There was nobody around so she should be able to relax and sing to herself, to the moon, to the forest around her, without the interference of humans. The sing that escaped from her lips was one that most likely only she remembered, too old for even those who studied the past go discover it. A soft, slow, and beautiful song, one that could bring a tear to your eye. With the voice of this singer, her body wet and bathing in both water and moonlight, the sing could as well have been a spell, enchanting those who were either fortunate or unfortunate enough to have their ears receive it.

A fraction of a remains of the most fragile sound, only able to be picked up in a forest so quiet during the night, a droplet of water hitting the cold earth could be picked up through the thicket of trees, plants and wildlife. It was a strange, enchanting sound. Alluring, immersive. Like an illusion, more beautiful than any reality. Like a color no one had seen before. Diluting senses, betraying perception, and putting all those it reached under its warm, embracing spell.

It was apparent, he was not fully in control. Lyserg figured it. Not swiftly, by the time he was able to dispel, regain his composure, he had already strayed far from the paths made for travelers. Eyes were open wide. Standing amidst the overgrowth, between brushes and trunks of wood, surrounded by the silent ambience. If it were not for the fact that he had somewhere to be, his curiosity would have forced him to follow the alluring enchantment in form of sound. The graceful illusion that had managed to catch him off-guard, albeit always being so attentive to preparation.

Already having turned around, rustling through the flora down the mountain, it was not until he realised, seized the nature of this song that he stopped in his tracks. Reminiscent, unusually intense was a sudden impulse within him. It reminded him of something he believed to have forgotten already, something he had purposefully tried to obliviate from the confines of his consciousness. Gritted teeth, parted lips and clenched fists stood inside the forest. A hood covering what he wished no one to see. A tear, a single tear, rolled down his left cheek. Departing from his face, leaving behind a trail of wet salt, it crashed unto the earth, sinking into soil and ligating with the forest.

Images of an old kingdom, his old kingdom flashed through his mind. A blonde woman, slender and soft features, golden hair and eyes as turquoise as cobalt. Shaking the images off, the edge of his lips shook. Turning on his heel, Lyserg trailed after the words being sung so softly into the air. Who knew a song so old, who knew a song long forgotten by the world. Who knew a song so ingrained into his conscious it acted like a trigger to impulse. He knew there was little time, but he so dearly wished, needed to see for himself just what kind of creature his was.

With silent step, and covered trace, he opened leaves like doors until arriving on the top of a cliff. He was unaudible, his magic masked his presence. Time veiled his noise and had erased any pressure he gave off. Peering down the vertical rock wall, a small waterfall plundering down into a hole creating a lake, his eyes spotted the origin of this song. Still reverberating sounds into eternity, a girl with fox ears was the last thing he expected. Eerily familiar, eerily alien.

Making his way down the cliff, he arrived on the height of the lake's bank. Stepping out into the moonlight, bathing in the glistening white, his voice broke his ghostly being. "Good evening." It spoke, in melancholic soft, completely different from the usual stoic apathy. It was silent, carried no intention. The green and blue bulbs with the black slits sitting between his eyelids traced the figure, the silhouette so clearly visible. Light reflecting off the water, her appearance was stunning.

The moon hung in the sky so high, a disc of silver that sent down its rays to illuminate the earth below, turning what would otherwise be a mundane world into a place of mystery and wonder. Rays of silver light, bright and pale, fell upon plants and animals alike as if an enchantment, filling them with a sense of blissful ignorance, as if the light came from something up there, high up there beyond their reach. Something which they did not know, but which used that light to make it clear that it existed, and it was watching over them, guarding them as if a parent protecting its children.

And where the light didn't fall there were sharp shadows, a contrast to that illusive illumination. Shadows that only added to that sense of mystery, playing tricks on both the eyes and the mind. Where one only saw the trunk of a tree they now could see the figures carved into its bark, put there by age and an unseen hand. Strange shapes, unknown shapes, beautiful shapes, mysterious shapes, terrifying shapes. All imagination was spurred to try and figure out what the eyes exactly saw, in this contrast of silver light and dark shadow.

In the midst of this, the lake of silver, a mirror of the night sky up high. As if a solid surface, rather than water, so perfect and clear was the reflection visible to all who came here, on this night with the full moon. And in the middle of that lake, which was in the middle of this enchanted landscape, the girl with the fox ears, and a tail almost completely hidden underneath the water. Hair and fur, both of a ghostly white colour, now looked like the brightest silver, illuminated by the moon. Her naked body, glistening from the clear water that it had been washed with, also possessed a hint of silver, that very same silver following her curves. The shadows, there were the moonlight did not fall on her, created a dance together with the light, painted a picture of beauty that one might mistake as not of this world. A nymph, standing in the middle of the lake as she softly sung, her head tilted upwards towards the moon, her hands folded on her collarbone, as her voice slipped past her lips, drifted through the air, slowly spread and filled the world around her.

This song, which she hoped nobody would hear. This song, this voice, which was so beautiful as to enchant those who heard it. This voice, which would cause those who heard it to lose control of themselves, to experience joy, sadness, or melancholy, depending on which song she sung. Her current song, one of a time long past, surpassed what she had been expected, made its way further away from the water, into the woods, until it was picked up by the ears of a human, wandering when all should be in their homes.

The human came closer. The human had managed to resist being enchanted, or at least had managed to draw himself out of the world of wonder the song had pulled him into. He wasn't just a normal human. He had experienced a lot, and lived a long time. Long enough that he remembered this song, a song which the singer didn't imagine anybody but herself to remember. A song of so long ago that even in myth it had been forgotten. The memories it had stirred in the man, awakened after having been hidden so long, left to never be seen again, left so the scars would heal. Those memories drew the man, who had been able to resist the song. He came not because of the desire to listen. He came for the desire of knowledge, to know who else still knew this song. And he was hiding himself. Even those animals who tried to avoid the humans couldn't track him. Using methods unknown to almost all he slipped through the darkness and pale light towards the source of that voice, that voice which had drawn his attention to successfully and unwillingly.

When he arrived the siren was still singing, unknowing of the audience she had attracted. She had hoped that it would not be so, that she had avoided letting anybody hear this. This song was for herself, for the moon above her, for the world that she had wandered through for so long. But it had happened nonetheless, and she would soon learn about this. How she would react, that was another question.

The moment that Lyserg spoke up her eyes opened, her focus gone as she looked around on the intruder, one who she hadn't expected and who had found her while she was bathing. More importantly (at least from her perspective), one who had found her while she was singing. The latter carried a lot more weight, for all the effects it could have. Her song abruptly stopped, no longer filling the world around her with its enchanting effects. Instead there was utter silence, a silence which somehow was just as fitting in this world of light and shadow as the soft melody that had preceded it. The figure with the fox ears stared at Lyserg, studying him with vermilion eyes that, like Lyserg's voice, betrayed no emotion.

That is, until suddenly she lost her physical form, becoming as ethereal as she already had appeared to be. At the same time she moved towards the man standing at the edge of the lake at high speed, already in front of him before most humans would have been able to react to her suddenly moving, without any warning or indication of why. Once in front of him a blade appeared in her hand, long, slender, and as ethereal looking as she herself. Without any pause or hesitation she swung the sword in a horizontal arc, holding it in both hands and her entire body rotating with the slash. She was moving fast, fast enough that if Lyserg was a normal human he would probably already have been cut open before he realized what was happening.

A scissor as sharp as a blade, cut the strings that the audible beauty was hanging on. Immediate, without forewarning, it stopped. Resonance dancing in synchronization with the forest vanished. Words slowly dissipated as mere memories of before. It was all in the past now. The emotions dormant, the feelings triggered stopped overflowing and slipping out of his control, the firm grasp he had always kept. No longer did he feel the impulse, the need to yield to his own insecurities. Consciously letting determination, will and strength seep back through his skin and bones, his posture re-affirmed. Up straight and with presence.

Lips parted, wanting to speak in the usual stoic tone, interrupted by swifter action. Magic pulsed, reverberated through air and ground. His gaze fixed on the ethereal form slowly pushing itself out, Chronometry did the work for him. An illusion, darting towards him. Not real, merely a projection of magic unto his own perception. Simple, but he could see. Beginning, middle and end. Creation, and now he watched the spiritual form dissipate into him, just before it would have struck down to split his skull. To his surprise, the girl from before was gone. Gone? Not gone, the sensation of that uncanny familiarity, yet uncanny distance was still here. Its taste remained, its scent and touch on his skin.

Eyes darted around, shoulders turned, the flash of hair, white as the moonlight it reflected sparkled into his eyes. Not an attack however, merely a gander and a sigh. Now, lips parted, before they would be interrupted again. "He.... llo?" Slowly, unsure of what to say. Still betraying intention. Still conveying feeling. "I will not hurt you. Be sure of that. I did not mean to stalk, or attack." Hand rose to forehead, and slowly, but surely dusted through his hair. Dropping down, the other hand made its way to the corner of his cloak. Gently, they tore it away, revealing the armor clad body.

Continuing down to his belt, the fingers unbuckled a sword, connected to the leather strap holding together his waist. It dropped to the floor, the hilt cluttering and resounding metal noises. "Please... do not be shy." He finally said. "I wish to know who you are." He proposed, with beginning management of his intonation and phonetics. He raised his hands up to his head, and slowly crouched. The fickle encounter between human and beast. Civil and feral. Native and foreign. Over and over, it transpired. And tonight, in the veil of the moon, it affected these two products of nature.

That illusion, so realistic and complex, moved towards the intruder as if an actual spirit, one with hostile intentions. However, as complex as it was, the moment that the ruse had been discovered it began to fade away, it began to unravel and fall apart. When it reached the man, the one who was supposed to be deceived and trapped, only wisps remained, swirling around him before also fading away, leaving no trace of either the illusion or the creature that had created it. The man was once again alone in the forest, the moon still high up in the sky, uncaring about the events that had played out on the ground far below. It was as if not only the spirit, but the song and the siren had been an illusion as well, as if they had never been there and he had merely seen them as a waking dream.

However, the man was not so easily deceived. He knew that he had seen and heard was real, and would not be dissuaded from finding evidence, to show himself that what he knew was truth. He searched, he looked, until eventually he found his target, an incomplete attempt at hiding. He called out to her, tried to persuade her, explained that he was harmless. He wanted her to stop hiding. He wanted to know what it was that he had found. His curiosity, his desire to know, was making him display humility, something which most likely was no oft seen from this man.

At first his pleas, his calling out, had no effect. The trees remained unmoving, the wind silent, the world around him didn't change. He knelt, unarmed and with no intention of harm. A picture, or a painting, so unmoving were he and the world around him. That apparition, that shape he had seen in the lake, remained hidden, unwilling to show itself, or unable. A silence that could make the largest shout disappear into nothingness, a static display that would halt all movement.

However, then slowly something appeared. And something disappeared. A bush, as innocent and mundane as the next, slowly began to fade. Nothing gave it away, it could have been just one bush amongst many, but yet it slowly unravelled, just as the assault had unravelled. The bush, an illusion, but one crafted so well that any normal man would not have suspected it. A masterful display of deceit, now no longer required or wanted. And from behind the bush, from behind the tree whose base it had hidden, appeared that figure that the intruder had seen, silently staring at him with large vermilion eyes. She was still as bare as all creature are upon birth, still wet from her time in the lake.

She slowly stepped towards the man, still silent, her movements careful and graceful. If she was embarrassed about her appearance, of how her entire body was on display, to be ogled and seen without limit, she showed no hint of it, not even the barest reddening of cheeks. Instead her eyes were focused on the person who had heard her song that nobody should have heard, who had seen her when she had hoped nobody had been there to see. Her expression was still one without any intention betrayed, merely the expression of one watching something or somebody of importance. When she was a mere yard away from him she came to a halt, looking at him with eyes unreadable. What went through her head, what she was planning, it all was hidden behind those eyes. She did not speak, did not even move her lips as if planning to speak. As silent and strange as a spectre she was, and with no intention of changing that.

After more than a minute of silence had passed she began to move again, slowly but with clear certainty. As if ignoring the man before her she walked back towards the lake, still with slow, careful but clear grace. Her tail, leaving a trail of droplets in its wake, swayed behind her, hiding her behind beneath white fur. At first it was truly as if she had forgotten about him, or as if she had dismissed him, but then she looked back at him, waiting for him to follow before she continued moving. She moved to the edge of the water, at which point she extended one arm, extended the index finger on that arm, extended both aimed towards the surface of that silver mirror that the lake had become.

Should he, the intruder, follow that silent command he would see something interesting, something that would most surely draw his attention. The spectre's image remained the same, but his own was...not his own. Instead it was of another girl, one with the same white hair, with the same fox ears, the same vermilion eyes. Yet, they were not identical: the differences were small, but they were significant, enough to make it clear that they were two different people. And the reflection that had appeared where the man's own should have been, so similar to that of the figure standing next to him but still different, was one that he knew. It was the appearance of somebody that he had met, not too long ago, and he would almost without a doubt realize where that feeling of familiarity came from, why he had felt that she was both distant and still somebody he knew.

The siren herself did not say anything, or move, instead waiting for him to make his next move, decide how to react to this. She just watched the water, just as she wanted him to, showing emotion on her face for the first time as she looked at that second reflection: longing. The desire to regain something that had been lost.