It was beautiful outside. The sun was bright, warm and inviting, shining down on the upturned leaves of the old oaks and willows. Light sparkled from the water of a little stream as it flowed over stones to form tiny waterfalls and miniature rapids in its downhill race. Tine yellow dandelions and lavender violets grew from soft, green grass, dangled down in sweet smelling bunches to cover the foliage.

Murk struggled to keep his eyes averted from the exquisite view offered by the uncovered window. He could not afford to be distracted from his work, but it was so hard to concentrate. Perhaps he might got for a run when class was over, find the thickest grove of honeysuckle and take a wad of sweet, yellow flowers home to his little brother.

"Excuse me, young man."

Murk snapped his attention back to the computer screen in front of him. A rather angry looking weasel of a man stared back at him. He had been caught.

"Yes, sir."

"To work, young man, or I shall report this to your parents’ assistant."

"Yes, sir."

"I have over two thousand student. I do not have time for daydreamers."

Murk sighed, "Yes, sir," and began typing his next lesson.

Murk hummed softly to himself as he wandered along the time stream. His great grandmother had once told him that she had picked honeysuckle from this area. There were thickets of it everywhere in the woods, but the best were along the water. Soft blossoms, butter gold and milk white, hung, soft and tempting, from jungle green vines. The only person the old woman had ever shared these secrets with was her eldest great grandson. He had been the only child born before her passing who had seemed right to her, the only one detached enough from their electronically organized life to appreciate it anyway.

That was what she had loved about him, his appreciation of the natural world. She had hated computerized living and had loved telling stories of what life had been like before everything was automated. Murk was fascinated by that concept, a world untouched by the digital. He would have loved to have lived then, when beaches and forests were more than just a few parks, when one could live and interact with nature, observe it in the way of great writers and artists. A few natural reservations were not enough to foster the experience of running free through unrestricted forest flowers and undergrowth.

Sighing, he shook such thoughts aside. To consider how the world had come to ignore nature might change his lazy meander into a heavy trudge. For now he would forget that and focus on collecting honeysuckle for Koth.

His little brother loved the smell and taste of those little flowers. Perhaps, if the boy had been born before great grandmother died, she would have shared her secrets with him instead of Murk. The child was so entranced by nature that it was near impossible for him to concentrate on a computer. Unfortunately, Koth was bedridden, paralyzed from the waist down, and had been for years. No longer could he run out into the world he so loved and pluck his favorite flowers from their vines to taste of their sweet secrets.

No. Those were just more depressing thoughts. Koth said he had a tendency to brood. He really needed to work on that.

Murk sighed and continued his wandering. The little brook giggled along beside him, tiny purple flowers he could not name reaching from its bank to thrive in the shade of the great trees. He let his eyes follow their winding path along the ground until they began to turn blue, a very bright blue. Wait. That was not flowers.

Slightly confused, Murk followed the lavender petals to the intertwining blue streak. As he came closer, he realized that the cerulean strands were actually hair, in a long, thick braid. The silken rope ran through the blossoms and over a ridge to the source of a quietly hummed song: a beautiful, naked, young woman.

She was lounging in the spring, from which the little stream originated. Her eyes were closed, and her fingers traced lazy patterns on the water’s surface. The water was so clear the Murk could see the pale curves of the form beneath. Before him lay the perfect image of a goddess, the perfect symbol of natural beauty, and he was utterly entranced.

It was not until black specks began to weave into his vision that Murk realized he had stopped breathing. When he started again, however, he wished he had not. The girl’s eyes shot open at the sound of his breath, widening at the sight of his face, and she disappeared under the water with a gasp. A moment later, he watched her pale, nude form vanish into the trees.

Murk stared dazedly after her, but it was not the trees he saw there. It was her eyes, the deepest indigo ringing the brightest blue. Her eyes stared at him, burned into his memory forever. Those were the eyes of nature, the eyes of a goddess. Those were the eyes of his Aphrodite.

Ree cursed and threw herself into a full tilt run, her long, blue braid flying behind her. She would be in so much trouble if father found out she had been seen. How had that boy snuck up on her, anyway? Normally the electric whine in a human’s blood clashed so harshly with the steady hum of nature that she could sense them a mile away. There was no way he could have gotten so close without her feeling him, yet he had. That boy had moved in so silently that he had stood right over her unsuspecting head.

He had seen her, stared down at her through a veil of mahogany hair, with those eyes. His eyes were the main thing that frightened her. They were so green, so inhumanly green, like the first, shocking sprouts of an Irish moss. Those eyes were a green beyond any natural green, circled by another green so dark it looked black in contrast. As human as he had been, his eyes were those of an immortal race, her race.

She came to a halt so sudden that birds flew away in fear. There was no way such a thought could be true. He had been human, painfully, horribly human, and yet... No mortal being could have such eyes. Those were the eyes of a changeling. But how...? Changeling eyes came from the mother, which meant a changeling woman would have had to... Now that was just absurd! It was law for women never to be seen by a mortal. Who would risk tainting their natural communion with the digital disease of a human touch? Besides, perhaps, Ree herself. Wait! No! She would not! Yet...that boy...and his eyes... There was something about him.

"Child," a harsh, cold voice but stingingly through her thoughts, and she flinched. "Have you learned nothing?"

With a deep sigh, Ree turned to face the regal form of her father. His hair was his only clothing, falling freely, the same blue as Ree’s own. The eyes glaring down at her were red, however, blood red, ringed in burgundy, and blazing.

"F-father," she stammered. "I apologize. He...he surprised me, and..."

"Surprised you? A human?"

"He...his blood...it was quiet...and...and he was very graceful...and..."

"Enough excuses, child. So long as you are a daughter, you will stay away from humans. When you are a son, you may interact as you wish. Is that understood?"

"I..."

"Is that understood?"

Ree sighed, looking sown. "Yes, father."

"Good," the man nodded, then turned away. "Now. Either return home, or change your skin." And her father was gone.