The night belongs to the fairies and sprites

[rurounihime]

I was walking back to my room tonight from the parking lot and it was so quiet. There are clouds scudded and swirled around the half-moon like sailing spider webs. It is one of those nights where there is a halo of rainbows around the moon through the clouds, and when the cars cease to come up and over the hill, my eyes adjust as if it were still daylight and I can see the barest rings of color around the moon. Patches of black clear after-rain sky, and studded stars here and there, maybe four. Under the trees, the rain is dripping off the pine needles with tiny pit-pat sounds, and the air is clean and moist. There is a light midnight breeze that whispers now and then, and reminds me to raise the collar of my coat. Orestes the owl is hooting again from his second resident pine on the bluff of the quarry, and I nearly trip over three small salamanders meandering over my doorstep. I can hear the screech of a night bird, possibly the owl, once, and then all there is is the breeze, the rain, and the faint whoosh of engines on the road above.

The night belongs to the fairies and sprites more than ever after the rain.