Comfortably numb until you opened up my eyes Who: Archie (NPC), Elaine and Natalisa Where: Down by the river When: Sunrise Warning: Nudity of the "just shifted" variety to embarrass the snail
Full moons were just the best night of the month and Elaine dared anyone to disagree with her where she could hear. Being able to spend the whole night flying up above the trees and away from the world was... spectacular. Wonderful. Beautiful. Flying at night was never as nice as during the day since she could not see everything as well, but Elaine put up with it since it was the full moon that made her change and not anything that the sun did. Once she had broached that subject with Tanner when they were camping; the idea that maybe birds like them would have been better off it they shifted according to the sun instead of the moon since they could always see better while others were left to the lunar cycle. Elaine would have been fine with it. Her sleep schedule would not have been shot to hell for one. One of the few conditions that she had set up when she had gone to work for Layla was that she could not work the day after the full moon, and preferably not the day of either since her nerves always ran a little high and tight those days. That had been well before the Light of May so giving a good reason had not really been possible, but she had insisted and once May came she had been able to give the whole reason why. Layla seemed pretty cool with it, which Elaine had figured since there were days when the woman smelled like things that she had only ever seen in so-called magic shops. Not so-called, she reminded herself as she swooped down to land on a low-hanging branch over the river. Real magic shops. It was kind of funny that the idea of magic being real boggled her mind a little when she had grown up turning into a bird while her sister manipulated fire and her brother made things grow, but it did. "Whatevs," she muttered, yawning widely once she had shifted back into her human form. This was where she always came after the full moon if she was by herself. The night before she had tucked away her bikini, a towel and that sheer cover-up Derrick had gotten for her so that she could get changed before walking back home.
Two times out of three, Elaine would land on the ground and change into the bathing suit before she jumped in the river. The other one she would land on this branch, shift and jump into the deep spot of the river. There were enough trees around that it was hard to see and she had that enhanced hearing so she would be able to hear anyone coming with enough time to duck down so that no one saw her skinny dipping. This was one of those times when she was not bothering with the suit and the main reason was that it was already hot and sticky. Just the effort of pulling on her suit after spending all night stretching out muscles that she did not have in this form would be enough to make her break out in a sweat and she saw nothing wrong with jumping out of the tree to land in the blissfully cool river water.
Elaine lingered under the surface, going so far as to swim to the bottom and open her eyes to see how the silt at the bottom was disturbed by her presence along with a few fish that darted off before she could even get a good look. Giggling, and watching the air bubbles escape to float up to the surface, she just enjoyed the feel of water all around her before she pressed her feet to the bottom and shot back to the surface. A toss of her head got her wet hair out of her face and, hearing nothing in the vicinity and smelling only distant people underneath all of the dirt and trees. Nature smelled and sounded so much more wonderful after she had spent so long as a merlin and the morning after the full moon had always been specifically for appreciating how wonderful it was. Sometimes she thought that regular humans could not hope to see the wild the same way that she, and probably other weres, could after they had shifted. "Maybe earth elementals," she amended the thought aloud, hair forming a sort of veil around her head when she floated on the surface, fingers wrapped around an overhanging root that kept her from drifting too far downriver. With the current carrying water and little leafs or the occasional twig past her, Elaine let her mind drift too. As a merlin it was easy to push away the entire world, but when she took her 'normal' form back she found that they were all waiting for her. Like what had happened last night with Derrick and that look on his face when she had not used his name... or how little he had spoken when he left and the vague feelings of guilt that had been nagging at her. Except it's not guilt because he'd just be gone by this time next week. Him lasting this long was a miracle in and of itself and now that September had had its full moon, Elaine was pretty sure that he was completely out of her system.
Now the real question was how to tell him and what to say, because Elaine had a feeling that her usual, well-practiced spiel was not going to work. Especially since a few things were different now. "Daaaaaaaaaaaaamnit."