Stone Circle Dusk will reveal...

The hour of dark slid swiftly toward them and soon the light would be gone. Merrit knew this; the pattern came every night, and though he didn't understand, he knew it would happen. Soon he would have nothing left to watch. Only then would he crawl back alongside his siblings and drift into dreams that pulsed with rhythm and light, until daylight came and he could start his watch over again.

And for this he prepared, in the dying rays - yet tonight the basic pattern of things shifted again. By now, he found himself used to that. Seeing had turned out to be something good, and maybe this would, too - so Merrit followed his mother without noise or complaint, until he found himself emerging to face a greater light, and his eyes widened just as quick as they reacted against the brightness and collapsed to a rapid blink and squint. The light didn't feel warm, but it stung his eyes for the first few seconds until gradually, the burn subsided and curiosity took hold.

Wide-eyed, he stared, and for the first few seconds of his life above ground, couldn't understand. There were greater things beyond the den - shapes and blurs other than the ones he knew and understood - yet familiar ones the same. Nearby, he heard the coo of his sister for closeness, and while Merrit himself felt little fear, he sensed that Arlette wanted someone near - and best he could, the child would be that.

Merrit kept an eye for Keen even as he moved himself to lean against his pale sister's opposite side, but when he reached her, he turned to her with the concreteness of his watch and cooed a soft and singular note to let her know that he was there, that she was safe with him. Around them, Others approached, their scents swirling and their voices rumbling through the soft ground underfoot. They each had a rhythm, a note, a beat, different, distinct, and lovely, and he turned to appraise them, one by one, and tried to make sense of which chords belonged to whom.