Spying [Mid-Silver Age] – (tag: Harmonia)
Sneaking was something that a person might think would come naturally to an Underworlder. Particularly an Underworlder born of Night and Darkness. After all, sneaking around in the middle of the night would be second nature to some of those children. But not to Philotes. Not for lack of trying; she would really like to return the favor some of her siblings visited upon her, and sneak up and scare the stuffing out of them when they least expected it. It was all in good fun. Mostly. But Lottie had a problem with sneaking: she was a klutz.
It seemed, some days, like she could trip over thin air. If there was a way to physically fail at something, Friendship could find it effortlessly. Dancing was a disaster. Weapons were just asking for a decapitation or impromptu amputation, and a few of her brothers and sisters had taken to hiding theirs when they saw Philotes coming. Though she did surprisingly well with kitchen knives when she was cooking, if she was distracted, things could get punctured that she never intended to perforate. Like her forearm. And when she tried to sneak, she invariably knocked something over, ran into something, or otherwise made noise.
So she didn't do it very often, because she was really not very good at it at all. But today, she was being very, very careful, and moving very, very slowly. Because she was definitely trying to sneak today. Lottie felt she had very good reason to sneak, and very good reason to want to sneak. After all, if they saw her, they would either run away, or they would talk to her. She would either be disappointed or embarrassed. No, this was much better done surreptitiously.
Lottie edged forward again, the warm grass crinkling against her stomach. She'd decided that crouching would make her too tall and easy to spot. So she'd crawled forward through the tall grass around the river bank, easing closer to the pool that formed below the tiered waterfall. Now that she was near the edge and almost able to see the water, she'd lain on her stomach to inch closer. She was almost there, and she's almost successfully sneaked, she didn't want to ruin it.
Philotes peeked around the edge of a shrub that was clinging to the rocky river bank and providing her some camoflage, and there they were. Her breath caught in her throat as she saw all the skin and all the feathers and all the beauty. It was really not fair, she knew, to be spying on them, but all the reasons Friendship had given herself not to do this had been countered when she found arguments for why she should. In the end, she'd just given in to temptation.
And, she justified to herself, she hadn't known they were going to be bathing in the pool when she'd started following them this morning. She'd just wanted to see them, they were all so very pretty. Especially Eros. Everything about him was perfect. Though there was one with gold in his wings and every time he moved just so, the sunlight would catch that and make him almost shimmer. That was pretty too. There was a tall one with a face that was so sweet, she'd barely looked at the rest of him despite him being naked. But her eyes kept going back to Eros. All of Eros. Wet, golden, perfect, gorgeous Eros.
Lottie let out a little sigh of pleasure without even being aware that she made a sound.