Coifea sits cross-legged on the ground at the edge of the lake, quietly considering the star's reflections in the rippling waters, humming a low tune almost under her breath.
Still clinging to the last vestiges of warmth given by the daytime sun, the pond's waters shroud themselves in a veil of thick fog that swirls restlessly in the autumn breezes. Through the drifting veil Eilialhenel comes walking, the faint silvery night-light glimmering upon her hair and eyes. Though certainly she must notice the maiden seated at the waters' edge, she says nothing, but rather with silent feet as is an elf's wont makes her way to the bench and sits gazing out.
Coifea's hum dwindles lower, into the realms of inaudibility - and stops. Stretching her arms up above her head, the girl turns her head to look about her, and spots the other seated on the bench, and half startled comments, "O - have you been there all this time?" However long that may be.
Eilialhenel giggles mirthfully, an incongruous sound in this serene scene of cold, cloudy grey. "The reply is yes, if by 'all this time' you refer to only the last moment or so - and otherwise nay, I have not been sitting here all the while spying on you if that is what you fear!"
Coifea relaxes, features melting into a wide grin, "I've hardly been doing anything interesting enough to merit being spied upon, so if you had been here longer, I'd have been a pretty uninteresting target. I merely didn't hear you." And wasn't listening... "So did you come here to watch the lake too?" she presumes.
"Watch it, perhaps," Eilialhenel says with a noncommital shrug of her shoulders. "Or maybe," she adds, as she reclines further in her seat and reaches up with a slender arm to languidly pluck a wrinkled dry leaf from the cherry-bough that droops over her head, "to listen?"
Coifea falls silent an instant, listening too, fingers dabbling, making ripples in the otherwise still water at the lake's edge, "Then why not smell and touch as well?" she queries. "Make use of as many senses as we can."
Eilialhenel's reply, "And taste, as well!" is sharp and quick, as is her sudden lurch off the bench and lunge towards the maiden who sits at water's edge. For all purposes, she seems to have but one intent in mind - to dunk her in the pond. At the last moment though, as a young horse charging will playfully veer, she changes her course and rather leaps herself into the water with a great splash. As she stands up amidst the great eddies she has stirred in the heavy fog and wades back to shore, she grows more pensive, and then sitting near the other elf, she sings softly, her voice rising and falling with the rhythmic rippling of the water,
Enveloped in a misty shroud
rippling in air so cool
echoing a sky strewn with clouds
a shining clear nighttime pool..
Coifea ducks, anyway, waves of laughter overtaking her even as the splashes of water do, also, laughter naturally dying away to a similarly pensive mood, experimentally picking up on the tune the other sings and continuing to hum it even after, adding an embellishment here, a grace-note there, and eventually nods, mirth picking up again, "Truly fitting for an evening such as this!"
Eilialhenel pushes aside a limp tendril of hair that in the diffuse grey light is cold and dark. With a smile that is at once content and melancholy, she leans back on two elbows, as if unaware of her rather damp state. Her antics apparently disturbed some of the feathered inhabitants of the pond, as now the dark forms of swans are silhouetted against the faint-glimmering sky; sleek shadows that course amongst the bulrushes, their honking seems unfitting a sound for such elegant creatures.
"Perhaps," she replies at length. "The swans would join you in your singing, it seems. And though their voices are as sweet as any in their own way, they seem poor accompaniment for you."
Coifea grins, eyes staring out, flickering, following the toing and froing of those elegant black birds, "In their own way, although it is a shame their voices are not as elegant, or regal, as when they glide through the lake. That said, I'm sure I do not cut so elegant a figure when I am swimming myself, so I suppose we each have our own specialities, do we not?"
Eilialhenel acknowledges the observation with a nod. "As we are to earth and trees, so they are to water and air. For my own part, I am more than overjoyed to cede dominionship of the sky to the birds and the clouds and the sun and the falling rain, and keep my own feet upon solid ground. Undoubtedly there is something to be said for dancing up there with the stars, but I can see them well enough from here; and they can see me - and that's enough." There is finality in her voice as she makes her statement, accompanied by a near imperceptible tensing of her body as she speaks of flying, and a slight curling of her slim fingers as she grasps ever so slightly at the ground.
"The nearest we'll ever get to flying is up the treetops, getting blown about by the breeze." Coifea looks a little wistful, "And that can be fun, although I wouldn't like to do it all the time, not all. But that lake of a sky... it's enticing, somehow."
Eilialhenel's response is a throaty little chuckle. "Nay, friend, the treetops, where your feet still rest upon a friendly limb, are not at all like flying. Sitting upon the golden feathered back of a mighty eagle, clinging between the mighty wings that with each thrust threaten to throw you plummetting through the air below, the wind thinner yet whipping faster than you've ever imagined - that," she says with emphasis, "is the closest we'll ever come to flying. I imagine," she muses, " that it is something that ought to be done with one's own wings."
Dinenduin drifts in from the westward expanse, spearless, armorless, wandering. His eyes aimlessly move across the starry expanse of night, leaves crackling underfoot, giving away his approach to any nearby. It's a quiet night for him.
Coifea smiles softly, "Oh, but then I'm hardly likely to ever sit astride an eagle, I fancy," With a mock sigh she adds, "The lesser sensation of the tree-tops will have to do for me for now. Or - just imagination, maybe." A slgiht turn, to spot the crackler-of-leaves behind them, and a smile goes over that way.
A damp form, with both hair and raiment grey clinging limply to her body, Eilialhenel lies recumbant upon her elbows by the water's edge. The ripples have slowed, the swans returned to their nighttime slumbers, and the swirling mists has settled back down heavily upon their watery bed. At the crunching of autumn-felled leaves, she stirs slightly, turning her head back towards the path. It is but the form of an elf that approaches, and so she allows it to do just that as she turns back to her cloudy-night companion. "Not a lesser sensation," she corrects. "Merely a different one. A sensation that I, for one, am more suited for! At the moment, though, as we speak of sensations, I must confess that I think the winter is trying to arrive here as early as possible, and the cool air and wet clothes are not an altogether pleasant sensation!"
The young soldier approaches at a careless and unwary gait, lost in those stars above. It's the merry chatter of these maidens that snaps him to attention, shadowy forms in the moonlight, feminine, but oddly featureless to his eyes. They've both noticed him, and for that reason he gives aim to his pace, approaching. A satchel appears from the darkness whilst the elf draws nearer, dangling from his slim right shoulder.
Coifea is herself a little damp, although only having bathed her fingers in the lake, rather than her whole being, she for one is perfectly content not to shange her position. "It is, however, a consequence of bathing fully clothed on such a night as this," she argues, "And that looked pleasant enough... not every sensation can be pleasant, after all!"
As lightly as a butterfly might flit upon warm summer breaths, Eilialhenel in one motion rises to her feet. "A consequence, certainly, and one that must be dealt with. It may be that I can do naught to warm the air here or dry my clothing faster than it will, but under the eaves of the lodge it is a different story, as the fire will chase the chill away for me."
These words are uttered as the young guard appears, and amiably she nods to him. She does not stand still to speak, though, and sets off again on soft-treading feet towards the meadow, passing him as she does. "I'm a little wet, you see," she says gesturing to herself as she slips by him. "If you decide to swim, watch for the swans, as I think I've raised their ire!" her voice trails behind her as she disappears into the flat grey of the cloudy night.
