The sky was a deep, clear blue. Clouds scittered across it like fat businessmen late for important meetings, except for one. It was a barely visible puff of vapor that was the subject of a stare that seemed to freeze it in place. That stare originated from a slim figure lying at ease in the middle of a carefully manicured grassy meadow, hands pillowed behind her head.

Naida Couren was amusing herself by practicing cloud-shaping, and it was hard work. First she had to think up a shape, then she had to decide it was a good shape, and after that... something. Ida didn't know what. It was one of those inside-head things that happened, like that time when she made the cloud stay together. That was a while ago, now that the naiad thought about it, and Ida idly pondered what she had been doing since then. There had been something....

Ida was rather typical of the naiad race, from the crystal blue eyes, to the silvery waterfall of hair, at the moment falling over her pale elbows in shining waves. She wore a dress, or something similar to one, that could have been mistaken for silk, if one didn't examine it closely, in a shade of blue matching her eyes. In one did examine it closely, it wouldn't do much good, because it wasn't fabric, just something that came with being a naiad; Or at least, being Ida.

Above, the tiny cloud became, in order, a sailing ship, a sheep's head, a palm tree and a mushroom.

Maer had been enjoying a lovely stroll through the park, needing all the 'back-to-nature' time she could possibly get. This city of technology really didn't do it for her. She had to keep her wings furled as to blend in more commonly with the city folk, although young men were constantly looking at her anyways. Maer found it amusing picturing the expressions that would appear on their faces once she had told them her true age...

Maer's sudden smile was full of honest-to-goodness true happiness as she walked along. She glanced to the sky, hearing a bird overhead. She stopped. Never in her 530 years on earth had she ever seen clouds contorted thusly. A sheep... a mushroom... such things didn't happen naturally. There had to be another nature being somewhere around here...

Maer walked through the trees, coming into small meadow upon small meadow until she finally saw the creator of the images in the sky. Only one word was needed to announce her presence, "Impressive."

Ida looked innocently up at the newcomer-person, eyes wide and liquid, as if to say 'what did I do?'. She flashed pearly teeth and rolled over, so that the newcomer, formerly standing above her head, now stood in front of the naiad, who propped herself up on her elbows, and hoped that she wasn't getting grass stains. Who could understand plants....

Hands fisted underneath her chin, Ida corrected "Not impressive. Pretty, though?" She didn't bother to deny it, but felt, in the back of her head, that having approval was a good thing. Her silvery hair fell in waves over her bare shoulders.

The cloud, now that Ida was no longer concentrating on it, began to fall towards her, at a leasurely pace, feeling rather miffed that it's naiad was no longer paying attention, that is, if a cloud could be said to get miffed.

"Mmm, perhaps that would be a better term for it. Yes, they were pretty..." Maer said slowly, watching the miffed cloud sail towards it's manipulator. "I believe it wants some attention, young naiad."

Yes, Maer was certain now, this was no ordinary mage of nature manipulating clouds at will. Gods knew she had been on this earth long enough to fully recognise a fellow nature fae. Maer blinked once, then seemed to apporove of something. Silently she let her wings loose. The great bluey-black span seemed happy about it's release, seeming to dance in the wind with joy.

"I am Maer," she announced. With those few words she sat herself down on a decaying tree stump.

Ida looked abashed as her misty vapour twined itself around her lower body, leaving only her head free, so that she was completely encased in droplets. She reached out one set of slim fingers to touch it, almost like she was petting a fearful pet. So absorbed was she that Ida didn't take in the rest of the other's speech until a few moments later.

At that point, Ida looked almost as miffed as her cloud, and her tone was petulant. " 'm not young. 'm old. Just look young 'cause that's what naiads do, isn't it?" She had, technically, been a thinking being for two days, but she had been around for a lot longer than that. Shesh.

Then she noticed the wings. She made a long oooo sound, and stared, fascinated. "Those're purdy... I want wings...." Ida, despite her assertion that she wasn't as young as she looked, was acting even younger than the naiad looked, more like a five year old than anything else. This, considering the time she'd been sentient, was pretty good progress.

Maer couldn't help but smile at Ida's speech. "Unfortunately, I don't think you'll be able to get them," she said, and shifted her weight slightly. The dewy-looking wings caught the sunlight and sparkled in random parts during Maer's movement. She rubbed her eyes for a moment before speaking again.

"I can see why you chose this spot to... hone your skills. So serene, so natural..." Maer was tempted not to fall asleep under the warm sunlight. It was very muchly time for her to be moving on, and yet this mist-enshrouded character had her interested very much.

"Can you do anything else aside from playing with these clouds?" she asked. The question could have come across as rude, but the way Maer intoned her words suggested curiosity, not cruelty.

Ida didn't understand half of what Maer said, but didn't say anything about it. It wasn't that the language was a problem, it was just that the meanings were so utterly foreign to the naiad's understanding. She was just playing, not 'honing' anything, after all. She accepted the lack of wings with less than a shrug, not really caring now that the first rush of novelty was over.

The plural Ida did feel a need to correct, so the naiad did so. "Not 'these clouds'. This cloud." She began to mutter to herself, semi-audibly. Anyone who tried would be able to hear her. "Stupid humans and their stupid climate changes that make a perfectly good stream into a cloud...."

Maer bit back a grin. Long had it been since she had been so amused. "I'm sorry the mean humans and their climate changes hurt the stream." Maer said with a perfectly straight face.

She shifted again. The urge to lay herself down to sleep was becoming unbearable. She needed to do something... "Do you hear that?" she asked suddenly. "It sounds like a big cat..." Mmm, a big cat. Exactly what she needed!

Ida peered up at Maer, expression oddly cany for one who seemed so empty headed. "Y'don't have to get so much amusement from it, y'know." Her tone was still the voice of a petulant child, however, so perhaps the expression had just been chance. Unlikely, however, for it was something that had never happened to Ida before.

Ida didn't move for a moment after the cat comment, only then remembering that it was not going to drink from her stream if it found her. It might actually do that 'hurt' thing. Whatever that meant. Silvery tresses bouncing, the blue-gowned girl stood up, her cocoon of vapour streaming out behind her in a cloak-shape. She looked around, eyes wide with fright, or something similar, as the naiad contemplated what her first experience with 'hurt' might be like. Unpleasant, in all probability.

As if reading the naiad's mind, Maer said, "Relax. No one is going to get hurt. Not you, not me, not even the big cat. It may even becime our friend. One just needs to know how to be nice to it." The Fairy was having a difficult time putting the words into a simpler from so that the other could understand.

As Maer spoke, a grand male cougar stalked it's way through the surrounding undergrowth, not hungrily necesarily, but ready to attack whomever was taking over his territory. He'd done a lot of hard work making that particular peice of land his own, and he wasn't going to give it up so easily as that.

Ida didn't really believe Maer, despite the assertion. She uttered a 'meep' of fright and hid herself in her personal fog bank, only her eyes peeping out. It looked, really, like a child huddled underneath a blanket hoping the boogie man would go away.

Ida whispered, in that tone that signals 'we are conspiritors' "You make friends and I'll watch, 'kay?" She didn't exactly fear the cat, but... there was something. Some instinct, maybe. Anyway, she could come out of her hiding place any time she wanted to. Ida just didn't choose to.

Maer nodded her head firmly and faced the noise in the trees. (Getting up off the rock first, of course...) She smiled a little, no longer tired now that she was out of direct sunlight. Sunlight... an odd thing to make one sleepy, yes?

The large cougar bounded into the clearing after a few moments of stealthy watching. This thing with only eyes puzzled him, as did the other living creature in front of him. Animals weren't supposed to have wings! Leastwise not big animals like that... (This was all in a sense of much more crudeness to thought, obviously.)

Maer stood stock still while the really big cat encircled her, not daring to move, lest he attack. She did, however, call out to him, casting the illusion that she was a female cougar. Aaaah, then he settled down a bit.

"It's okay to come out now," Maer stated to the naiad. "I doubt h'll even notice your presence. He won't hurt you. We are friends."

The naiad stepped out from her misty cocoon in order to peer at the tawny cat, who seemed much less feral now that Maer had done... whatever she had done.
Ida smiled at it, and then looked at Maer, hair still damp from her mist's embrace. "My name's Naida Couren. What happened to the cat?" She was a bit... scatterbrained, but that didn't mean she was stupid. The naiad just didn't pay much attention to anything, and it showed. Often.

Maer smiled. "I'm Maer Aholost, as I said before. Happy to meet you. This kitty? Oh, he thinks I'm another cat. I can do that, you know."

The cougar raised his head as Naida spoke. Maer soothed him quickly. "He won't hurt you now. He's a sleepy kitty, I think. Yes... sleepy..." The cougar put his head back down upon his stretched-out forepaws and closed his eyes.

ooc: Sorry it took me so long to respond.
ic: Ida nodded, blue eyes empty as the sky, not understanding, but also not caring that she didn't understand. It wasn't important, after all. What was important, as always, was her stream. "Do you know how to make it stop being a cloud? Since you are good at mind-things." The naiad classified almost everything as mind-things.

She didn't understand that when she bound it into a cohesive shape, in order to stay- well, alive isn't the word, but existing is. Anyway. When Ida bound the once-stream into this cloud-shape, she stopped it from completing its part of the water cycle. Effectively, the naiad bound herself into the human world, because what happened to her watery analog, happened to her.

The mountain cat stretched and gave a slight purr in his already heavy sleep. Contented, Maer patted him on the head lightly before rising fluidly. Mind-things? That was the product of a Naiad's mind, for you. Lovely, unintelligent, childish sayings like that... the Fairy smiled slightly.

"Can you make the cloud cry it's self back into the stream?" she asked, trying to find a way to explain the water process without sounding like a highschool science teacher. "You made it come out, surely you can make it go back in again? Ask it nicely."

Again an intelligent flash in the eyes. "I'm not an idiot, y'know." Ida was definitely peeved. "I've tried everything I can think of on it."
The child came back. "It's meeean."