The Mating Season

The copse was luminous and inviting.
Balmy winds shifted and the leaves swirled in tuneful coils.
He crushed the vivid ambers and yellows with grimy boots;
Feet scuffing the supple earth with each enthralled step.

She inhaled a surging gust
and spread her arms in temptation.
Her warm breeze thrust him in
and he clung to her, obsessed.

Undeniably beautiful was she, that he didn't comprehend
the brambles that curled around her legs
and the twigs that rose in the deep red of her verdant hair.

Her lips were soft and her touch bewitching,
like the undisturbed soil next to a water's edge.
That's where he laid her down
and took all that could be given.

Through slumber he was not aware what soon would be returned.

Damp mists and darkness engulfed the quieted creek;
the ambers had drained and washed away the essence of the marsh.
Cold awoke all visitors - disenchanted.

Gales were silenced and the darkness moved only for one sound;
the breathing of a heavy beast whose power had since ruptured.

Disbelieving and horrified
he bellowed his regret.
Screams awoke her yellow eyes
and cries forced fur & scales to act.
Her claws deep into his throat,

"Fret not, for you've been given all you asked."

A whimper and a sigh, and her melodious voice rang out,

"You please me like no other man; you must return again."

Pleading in vain and squirming to no avail;
through dripping words she swayed him  
with dark promises of a growing beast who would be born

unhindered.

A pact he made and avoid he would the trepidation of his sin.
Home is where he left, and to the forest he returned.
When colors reappeared, he entered her warm glen...

disillusioned by the mists and fearful of his huldrebarn.