Witch's Marsh I'm in my tropical love-land.

Lily pond sub-territory thing.

It was raining. It had come on suddenly as the sun set, with not even the alluring scent of petrichor to lull Ibis in to a zen-like state. The marsh was naturally quite damp and the addition of grim-faced clouds did not change anything, except when they began to spill from overhead. It wasn't the worst rain she'd ever experienced but it was cold - icy, even. As the evening progressed Ibis felt compelled to hide from the rain but she didn't know where to go, for even though there were many trees lining the more stable sections of the marsh, it was still a marsh. Whether her limbs were chilled with frigid mud or her top-line was saturated from above, by the time all light had dimmed she was soaking wet. It wasn't ideal; in fact, it made her miss the safety of the Willows, or the beautiful clover field she had once used as a home base back at the Hollow. But she was resilient, she told herself. She wouldn't let a little rain curtail all her hard work - all the hard work of her new friends, either.

So she continued to patrol the territory even as the darkness became so thick and starless that she couldn't tell paths apart, or solid ground from slushy mud, and that was how she stumbled across one of the clearings at the heart of the territory. The rain sluiced against the earth in such a torrent that Ibis was effectively drowning standing up and every time she tried to double back for the shelter of the trees, she'd slip in to a deeper segment of algae-rich water or inky-black muck. It was gross. It was frustrating. Any chance she'd have of finding something to eat or to stash away for a less rainy day were utterly dashed.

After an hour or two of this ceaseless turmoil the nymph finally found a worthy tree to roost beneath. Her tiny figure huddled against the plush base of the cypress, her coat looking more like a stain of warm silver against the green-black of the tree's prolific branches. She felt the tines dragging through her fur and scowled, utterly forlorn as the rain began to let up. Rather than feel elated as the sky began to clear and the first few stars blinked in to place, Ibis was miserable; wet, muddy, cold, hungry — not feeling like a lady at all, barely feeling alive really. She didn't move from her roost even as the stars began to twinkle across the center of the clearing: not until she realized stars don't exist on the ground. She moved to investigate, each step prone to slippage as her skin shivered, until she was faced with a wide pond lined with giant half-frozen lilies.

The pond was clear and rippling, but as the rain fully ceased and calm descended, all Ibis could see were the stars reflected back to her. They blurred in her vision; as she blinked away some shockingly warm tears, Ibis thought she could see the dark shape of Lily reflecting back to her like a wayward constellation, and her heart felt as if it would burst in that moment.