7) Moonlight

The inky water of the lake shone and shimmered under the moonlight, reflecting the sky above with astonishing clarity, mesmerizing Corinne.

This isolated place would not have been her first choice for a place to live. She had spent all her life in fancy estates and mansions, as a minor noble in the Crystal Isles. She couldn’t deny the reasons her partner had chosen this secluded lake, though she had tried.

While they might have originally been open to allying themselves with Morgana and Muramasa, they had dropped the notion quickly after subtle inquiries. Sitta- no, Weaver now, she had to remember to call her by the new name… Weaver was too valuable and powerful a healer for them to willingly let her run her experiments instead of dedicating herself to their armies.

They were a pair of fools, in Corinne’s opinion. They were also why her beloved had decided to change her name - Sitta was too well known in the Crystal Isles…

Corinne turned her gaze to the moon shining above. It seemed so much smaller from Aerius’ surface, she thought. So much smaller and more vulnerable… She wondered briefly if she was just projecting how she felt onto it… but two things could be true at once…

At least right now, in the moonlight, she didn’t need to worry about any of the politics or problems out in the Screaming Woods. It was perhaps odd to find peace here, but the Kita’s soldiers rarely came out this way, and there were rumours of powers that opposed them within it.

The reality didn’t interest Weaver or Corinne all that much, so long as no one took an objection to their presence. What mattered was that an ancient stone structure stood in the center of the lake, preserved by some sort of magic, and that the stepping stones in the water were nigh-invisible - even now that her feet had touched them, Corinne couldn’t spy them under the moonlight.

Reluctantly, she shook herself from her thoughts - instead of this, she needed to help Weaver set things up inside the building. Daydreaming in the moonlight could come once they were settled into the place.