The water did not part for the lean female, and instead she needed to barrel through it. Her thin legs plowed through the shallow water, the slow current hoping to trip her as she ran. The water logged tree branch hung in her mouth, curving upwards like a mocking extension of her smile. She did not run too quickly, for the sand was not a balanced surface and the pup that swam behind her was a newborn fish. Her scale and fins too new to be dashing off to the deepest ends of this pool. When Anu heard the pup call out in play she bounded a few more times before turning to face the beast that hoped to reclaim the prize for her own kind. A play growl rose in her throat and Anu lowered her head so that the stick teased the surface of the lake. She would wait for the little Dreamer to swim to her, and if she could manage it take hold of the stick as well.
The white furred fish paddled towards her, blue and green eyes meeting her gaze. The world around them had melted away, in a way that it did when she was with Hemming. Just the two of them and what ever they might have gotten into. It was easy for Anu to slip into such a place, when the trials of leadership and taken its toll, when love was so far from reach that she would rather forget it ever existed. She found a place among those that sought a different world as well, and Anu let it take her wherever it felt like going. Today it was a thief against a newborn fish, as in the past it had been a kite breaking away to fly free, and a dragon killed by pumpkin knight. If only Anu had been able to keep one ear out of the imaginary she would have heard the distant quake of a brewing storm.