Post by Sylph on Nov 18, 2009 9:12:57 GMT -5
It was a chilly day. Not cold, for it had been unseasonably warm so far this autumn, but nevertheless there was a certain bite on the air that had forced even the exceptionally warm blooded Sylph to retreat beneath the protection of long sleeves and a goose-down gillet. Her hair, which had been a sleek bob the day she had returned to Firefox, was now somewhat shaggy, hanging about her shoulders in an untidy fashion, the purple strands stirred almost constantly by the frozen wind.
She sat on the edge of the lake, perched atop the driest flattest rock she had been able to easily find, her oddly glittering green eyes fixed upon some imaginary object in the middle of the water, squinting slightly in the reflected glare of the low winter sun. As the wind gusted, sending her violet locks whipping across her rosy cheeks, her eyes narrowed suddenly, as if flinching, but she did not move.
The school grounds were quiet. Only the sounds of the wind and the water reached Sylph’s sensitive ears, punctuated only occasionally by the trill of some bird – probably a bunting of one kind or another. It was peaceful, in a raw, elemental kind of a way, which just happened to be the way that Sylph liked it.
So it was that the deputy headmistress was completely unprepared for a sudden, savage hissing sound that issued abruptly from somewhere off to her right. It was a sound that even Sylph, as the resident expert on wildlife, had never heard before, though instinctively she recognised it as some kind of warning call. Swivelling around to face the direction of the noise, the tall witch got swiftly to her feet, though her movements were not without a hint of caution; she didn’t want to frighten – or provoke – whatever was there.
She didn’t see the creature immediately, for it turned out that the sound was emanating from a pair of woody shrubs. For a wild moment Sylph thought that the herbology professor had sowed some new strain of fizzing hedging plant. As she crept closer, however, there was a flash of pink and orange and bright, azure blue. Sylph couldn’t quite believe her eyes. As the care of magical creatures professor, it was her job to be knowledgeable about all things beasty, but what she saw now was something completely new to her.
The pink and orange she had seen in fact made up a spectacular pair of wings, fragile as a butterfly’s and just as beautiful, but this pair were at least a metre across and dramatically lobed, the edges sculpted into great sweeping projections marked with great grey triangular eyes. They could have belonged to a species of especially majestic Atlas moth, had it not been for one very startling fact. Between the great delicate wings, where there should have perhaps been a torpedo-shaped body covered in hair, was something that resembled a lizard. Its scales were an astounding blue, while its two great eyes – certainly more reptile than insectoid for they were not compound – were a glittering yellow. Its tail, which was held in a spiral above its body, was boldly striped with black. Sylph had never seen anything like it. Could it be that this was a previously unknown species of megafauna? It was rare for new species to be discovered, especially one this large, especially in Europe. Then why had Sylph never come across anything like this in her reading? Very slowly, so as not to startle the beast, she reached for her wand. The butterfly-lizard looked on, its expression almost grumpy, and it continued to hiss.
Easy… easy…
She sat on the edge of the lake, perched atop the driest flattest rock she had been able to easily find, her oddly glittering green eyes fixed upon some imaginary object in the middle of the water, squinting slightly in the reflected glare of the low winter sun. As the wind gusted, sending her violet locks whipping across her rosy cheeks, her eyes narrowed suddenly, as if flinching, but she did not move.
The school grounds were quiet. Only the sounds of the wind and the water reached Sylph’s sensitive ears, punctuated only occasionally by the trill of some bird – probably a bunting of one kind or another. It was peaceful, in a raw, elemental kind of a way, which just happened to be the way that Sylph liked it.
So it was that the deputy headmistress was completely unprepared for a sudden, savage hissing sound that issued abruptly from somewhere off to her right. It was a sound that even Sylph, as the resident expert on wildlife, had never heard before, though instinctively she recognised it as some kind of warning call. Swivelling around to face the direction of the noise, the tall witch got swiftly to her feet, though her movements were not without a hint of caution; she didn’t want to frighten – or provoke – whatever was there.
She didn’t see the creature immediately, for it turned out that the sound was emanating from a pair of woody shrubs. For a wild moment Sylph thought that the herbology professor had sowed some new strain of fizzing hedging plant. As she crept closer, however, there was a flash of pink and orange and bright, azure blue. Sylph couldn’t quite believe her eyes. As the care of magical creatures professor, it was her job to be knowledgeable about all things beasty, but what she saw now was something completely new to her.
The pink and orange she had seen in fact made up a spectacular pair of wings, fragile as a butterfly’s and just as beautiful, but this pair were at least a metre across and dramatically lobed, the edges sculpted into great sweeping projections marked with great grey triangular eyes. They could have belonged to a species of especially majestic Atlas moth, had it not been for one very startling fact. Between the great delicate wings, where there should have perhaps been a torpedo-shaped body covered in hair, was something that resembled a lizard. Its scales were an astounding blue, while its two great eyes – certainly more reptile than insectoid for they were not compound – were a glittering yellow. Its tail, which was held in a spiral above its body, was boldly striped with black. Sylph had never seen anything like it. Could it be that this was a previously unknown species of megafauna? It was rare for new species to be discovered, especially one this large, especially in Europe. Then why had Sylph never come across anything like this in her reading? Very slowly, so as not to startle the beast, she reached for her wand. The butterfly-lizard looked on, its expression almost grumpy, and it continued to hiss.
Easy… easy…