Arrow Lake ou l'Optimisme

"Un plaisir pour les yeux," says the rake, his smile growing impossibly wider. Nimbly, slowly, he clambers down the boulder and does a drunken serpentine her way, head cocked. There's food in her jaws and that almost, almost, distracts him from the beauty of her visage.

He's hungry, after all. And an empty stomach makes for a wandering mind.

Who must you be? he asks in slightly broken common speech, his voice crackling, hoarse from disuse. Even whispering to himself through the short summer nights has not sufficed to tend his throat. 

But she's pale, like him, and she deserves a word or two. Perhaps more. Is she from the North? Her eyes are so light. Lined with coal. . .

And her mouth lined with prey.

And her mouth—