Autumn had settled heavily over Mythris that night the warmth of the day disappearing with the sun, leaving the forest cool and damp beneath a mostly clear sky. A thin mist gathered between the trees, curling low across fallen leaves while the occasional breeze stirred the canopy overhead.

Eidola had not intended to wander far, sleep had simply refused to find her, and eventually the quiet of the night had seemed preferable to lying awake. She moved without any particular destination, following familiar paths until something strange flickered at the edge of her vision.

A tiny blue white light hovered between the trees made Eidola stop. At first she thought it was moonlight catching upon something wet, but then the light moved. Delicate wings opened and closed around a body no larger than an ordinary butterfly, its glow bright enough to illuminate the leaves beneath it.

Her ears slowly folded backward as she had seen it before. Not here, but somewhere buried within dreams and visions she had never been able to fully understand. The same delicate wings, the same ethereal glow. Eidola had always thought of them as spirit butterflies, little fragments of whatever strange place her visions came from.

Except those belonged inside her head. You're not real... the butterfly continued to hover before another light appeared behind it. And another.

Eidola's breath caught as pale glimmers slowly emerged throughout the mist until what she had mistaken for distant moonlight became dozens of tiny glowing wings scattered between the trees.

---

 

In and out of sleep. True deep restfulness was evading Solana the same as it was Eidola. It caused the little girl to rouse from the birthing den. To tangle herself from the limbs of her family and out onto the worn packed earth just outside of it.

The night was cool, quiet, and the thin mist which blanketed the earth stirred at the mid of her legs for the much smaller wolf. She, too, would be faced with that same glow in the distance, where all else was deep darkness, savor the moonlight above. The young girl was obviously compelled to follow it and acting without much thought of consequence was not like Solana. She didn't pause for fear nor the sake of danger.

Quick steps brought Solana further into the forest, where here the moon's light could only touch in thin rays between tree branches. It's the light of the butterflies which stood out the most.

Woah… A whisper from her mug as she came up to the other woman from somewhere behind, yet her crimson gaze remained transfixed on the glowing creatures. Are they moon spirits? She asked, now tilting her head in the other's direction as she fished for answers.

Solana doesn't remember seeing this wolf before, but as far as she has become aware, there were plenty she had yet to meet. All Leona's siblings, for one! And as Solana began to explore further from the densite and follow her parents around on activities, the smell of other wolves on the trails made her well aware of many yet still to meet and know as pack. Today, it would be Eidola's turn.

It was something of a new phenomenon for the Shakti-Goldencourte. Oberon had recently taken to sleepwalking, and as his round form meandered through the darkness of night, a genial smile curved up his lips while he dreamed of fresh deer carcasses only just out of reach. If he kept walking, surely he would reach them, and then - oh! How he would feast!

His breath came out in pale plumes of steam as he bumbled (unconsciously) through the Vale in search of his prize. The smell was so enticing, he thought, and getting closer every moment.

Oberon let out a muffled grunt as he suddenly bumped into something small and fuzzy.

Oh, he said disappointedly, eyes fluttering as he struggled to blink away the sleep. Where was he? And how had he gotten this far from the dens? Uh... did you kidnap me?

But that was unlikely, he thought, studying Solana's petite form with a skeptical eye. He realized someone else was there with them, and regarded Eidola with equal suspicion for several moments as he looked for drag marks in the snow - but there was nothing strange around them save for the pale, fluttering shapes that hovered just out of reach, something he had failed to notice until now.

That's weird.

He thought hard.

Someone lose their glowing lights?

(This was in reference to one of several wolves he'd met who possessed the peculiar motes of light inherited from surviving what he understood to have been the End of the World, but he'd never seen any detach from their hosts before. It was a wholly new event for the boy, and he wondered distantly if he could somehow acquire them for himself in the absence of their true owner.)

The sudden sound of a voice startled Eidola from her thoughts her ears pinning back as she turned to find a young girl standing nearby. For a moment she simply stared, purple eyes drifting from the child's unfamiliar face to the pale lights hovering between the trees. It took another moment for the meaning of her question to settle and when it did, something uneasy stirred in her chest.

Her maw parted in preparation to answer, only for another small voice to interrupt. Eidola flinched as she turned toward the boy with a bewildered expression. Where had these children come from? And what were they doing wandering the forest at such an hour? How did you two...? she began, her concern outweighing her confusion.

But then the boy spoke of the lights, too.

Eidola fell silent, her gaze returning to the delicate shapes drifting through the mist. A particularly bright butterfly fluttered between the trees, its pale glow illuminating the damp leaves beneath it. She watched it for a moment before looking back toward the children, searching their expressions for some indication that they were truly seeing the same thing.

You... you can see them? she asked at last her voice scarcely above a whisper. There was something hopeful that lingered in the question, though she hardly dared entertain the possibility.

---

  Solana Oberon