[b]Time and Date:[/b] 13th Stretch of the 26th of Vermillio, 300 DM
[b]Location:[/b] Home of Zael Glast, Outskirts of Green Fall

    It was a bad day: His feet were sore, with a cramp in his stomach, feeling the dread of fruitless efforts. Pushing open the meager wooden gate, which elicited a piercing creak, he strode with tired legs through his front lawn. Unkempt greenery lorded over by weeds twice their size riddled the yard in a state of neglect. It wasn’t that he was an untidy person, far from it, but the locale claimed the land faster than he had time to tend to it. After a few years he left it to its fate and focused on his own home. 

    “It is pleasant to be home,” he muttered opening the windowless front door after briefly fiddling with the lock and key. It was a modest hut of a simple box shape made of long-faded dark brown planks and light, nearly pale wooden gable roof. It was simplistic and appealing in its own way, but a mass of vines and foliage had overtaken the outside as was common amongst Green Fall architecture. One doesn’t fight nature in the village for long without realizing defeat. However the inside was contrary in every aspect from the outside. Immediately after entering a singular large room made of the left side of the hut revealed a highly organized living space. Side tables stood in every corner holding neat furnishings and a candle plate, a square dining table sat near a wall that had a large counter and various kitchen utensils. Near a soft sofa and coffee table was a chest-high bookshelf with an assortment of books, although not nearly as full as Zael himself would have liked. Although of note was that every wooden furnishing was of a nice red oak with appealing finish. 

    Without missing a beat he went over to a closet and began packing away all his survival and foraging equipment piece by piece while running down a mental checklist to see if anything was lost. After having nothing of importance missing, although he somehow had lost a pair of twine strings, he set his pack near the door. Poking her head out of his collar his snake familiar slithered down his body to the wood floor. He smiled and took a relaxing breath after lounging on his couch. Almost immediately his thoughts of the warm welcome by his home and comfortable seat were disrupted by the past two day trip. A sigh escaped him almost on reflex as he knew he shouldn’t relax just yet. 

    “I suppose this will have to wait. It is still midday and business is to be done.” His eyes fell upon his snake which was busy curling upon a multi-branched post. “Would you like to accompany me into town, Zenari? I could use your eyes.”

    The snake turned to him, seemed to be in thought with a few tongue flicks, then slowly climbed down its post to reach his feet. Zael laughed before he said, “I can always count on you.”

    It took considerable willpower, but he rose off the soft caress of wool-stuffed delight and headed over to the door to gather his pack full of the wares he would be selling in town. With a habitual motion be began to reach for a small statuette hanging by a silk necklace string, one of a coiled snake painting in brilliant orange, black and blue. Before he grabbed it a sharp hiss came from below him making him freeze. A look showed him his familiar staring at him, into his eyes, as it coiled its long body slowly never looking away.

    “Really now? It is quite taxing to bear you so many days in a row,” said Zael with an apologetic tone. Another hiss came, this one sharper. “True, you did ride my shoulders the way back, but that is just another form of exhaustion.” A low, long hiss coupled by an intimidating baring of the fangs. “Yes, yes, I know. Alright, you get your way. As always, I can never truly say no to you.”

    He relaxed his shoulders in defeat as he brought his hand away from the well made effigy to the creature it was based upon. Inside his mind he silenced all thoughts. The soft wooden architecture bled away from his sight, the muffled wind and cry of nature sunk into a silent abyss, the soft aroma of candle scents and odor of aging parchment dulled to an undetectable scent. Everything that his mind encompassed, all his attention, was brought to the creature in front of him. Slowly the snake, no, she filled his vision. Her soft fragrance filled his lungs, the gleam of scales overtook the scenery, and soft breaths deafened like a thunderstorm. 

    Within himself was a void, one imperceptible, until the moment it ached to be filled. It searched within and found nothing to fulfil itself, so it reached outward. His fingertips touched her nose, and it found it. A perfect being, of matching color and essence, to relieve the depression that was unnoticeable until then. His soft grey eyes were filled with a subtle glow as her blue eyes, piercing into his depths, evoked a light until it enveloped her entire body. The light grew until it became a mist that coiled up his arm. It sank into his skin, slowly pouring itself into the void until it was no longer missing anything. A mesh of souls now complete, a perfect image of a snake in every detail now coiled around his upper left arm to shoulder and collarbone. 

    A brief sense of vertigo struck him as his world returned in every aspect making him rub his head. “[color=lightgray]It is a feeling of a longing fantasy come true, all up until reality asserts its dominance and slams you back to the earth. For all that is I would not trade it for the world. Although the world is of quite a worth.[/color]”

    “[color=lightblue]You wouldn’t dare,[/color]” a voice, silky and seductive, echoed within his mind. It reverberated in his ears as if it was spoken just over his shoulder, but in both directions. “[color=lightblue]The light of the moon would shun you for releasing a beauty akin to itself over something as paltry as the world.[/color]”

    Zael chuckled as he settled his pack full of herbs, spices and various wares over his shoulders ready to go into town. Before stepping out the door. “[color=lightgray]Ah, but at least the sun would guide me. A walk under the moon’s guidance is fret with danger.[/color]”

    “[color=lightblue]Yet you love the enticement of peril. Why else would you go into the untamed wilderness for every plant and root when the garden grows unruly devoid of compassion,[/color]” she taunted knowingly. 

    “[color=lightgray]Because for every peril there is a hidden pleasure waiting to be discovered. The unknown is simply that until you uncover what it hides.[/color]”

    A slight sting in his heart was felt as the image of a snake’s tail slapping him shot through him. “[color=lightblue]A poet you are not. Let us be off, business is to be done and the day slips away.[/color]"