The sun banks below the horizon, and it is glorious. Nothing like the dying ember-glow that marked the end of each day back home, it fills the sky with an etheric radiance, casting mile-long shadows and harsh illuminations in luminous reds, oranges, greens, in a moment that seems to last forever. Nothing like the sun she saw back home.

The light falls on a young woman, stretched out on a verandah, head propped up on hands, staring back into the unblinking eye of the sun from behind tinted lenses. It plays delicately over body, dappling her linen travel-clothing with soft twilight. It couldn't really be said to caress her form - she's nowhere near curvy or comely enough for such flowery poesy, all gawky angles and lean flatnesses - but she doesn't mind. To be here, in this moment, is all the beauty she needs. A faint smile crosses her lips - a smile of contentment.

The last few days in the life of Morgan Khorsandi have been singularly devoid of contentment and beauty. Leaving the Islamic Republic of Iran is not an easy process at the best of times - certainly not when one is a woman, travelling alone to university in a far-off land, and certainly not when she is a bastard, sired off adulteresses and shady Western businessmen. Customs took rather a long time - days - and the flight was enervating in the way that only long-distance air travel can be. She slept through most of it - uncharacteristic for her - and yet felt more exhausted than when she set out. Arriving with her modest trousseau, she's since spent yet another exhausting day enrolling, filling out admin, and familiarising herself with the college's layout, which involved yet more traipsing. The island was beautiful, the other women strangely subdued, but that suited her just fine. And now, after the first day of her new life, she is here, lying on the front verandah of her dorm, watching the sun go down, a finger idly twirling through her headscarf - happy, for the first time in a long time.

The smile turns into a frown, and she blinks a couple of times, as if trying to clear her vision. Her glasses must be reflecting the sun's dying light - there's a tiny, flashing mote in the corner of her eye. There it is again - a tiny, burning pinprick of colour, hovering at the edge of her vision. She rubs her eyes, but that doesn't help, causing the points of colour to multiply and divide, filling her vision for a moment before fading away, so much noise on her optic nerve. She's tired, her body's telling her to go to bed, this is to be expected - but the peace of the evening does seem to be broken …

Anyone who dealt with intergalactic slave trade knew about Shokushu island on a planet far from Earth. It was essentially the place to go for plentiful human slaves unless one wanted to try their luck hunting and capturing ADD agents. While humans came there for education and to be introduced to their future as a sex slave, Vespira and other aliens came to the island for personal pleasures and perhaps to browse the goods before purchase.

The alien woman had only arrived a few days ago. She was a bit impressed in how the place was run but she was not fond of the many rules she was required to obey during her stay here. But this was not a place to break the rules, even for monsters. Numerous factions were in full support of the Shokushu program and the steady supply of human slaves it provides for the galaxy. That was one feeding hand she would never have the gall to bite.

While her eyes took in many of the numerous beauties that inhabit the school, Vespira also took the time to explore the scenery throughout the island. It was truly a pleasing place, one she would not mind having for herself someday. Perhaps a slave resort would have its potential for wealthy alien species.

The sun was but a sliver over the horizon as the alien being enjoyed the crisp air caressing her luscious form. The slight stirring nearby revealed fresh prey also wanting to take in the scene before her. The faint rays of the setting sun had reflected some of her hypnotic light right into the woman's eyes but it seemed to only irritate her for the moment. Vespira peered with her yellow eyes at the woman who was about to take her leave. The woman seemed rather plain with her attire that did little to enhance the student's features. But the woman's composure sparked her interest. Now she merely had to find a way to bring her prey closer to her.

Vespira slithered quietly through the edge of the park. The wooded area kept her body concealed partially as more lights flicker across her prismatic scales. She was hoping perhaps to entice this student's curiousity of the source of the strange flickering lights and lure her a bit deeper into the forest. But if the girl proved to be unwilling, she could always follow her inside the dorm and invite herself into her home.

Ah, this wouldn't do. Staying out here and seeing the dying of the light could only lead to disappointment, as the beauty of this new life faded into nothingness. Far better to turn her back on it all, to leave it unseen and unknown, and to hold her memory of what it was, over what it had become.

Pulling herself to her feet, and dusting some of the fine wind-blown sand from her clothes, Morgan turns, to walk inside. Finally, her own room! A night of frenzied debauchery awaits! She could stay up as late as she wanted, eat as many packets of crisps as she felt like, pleasure herself far into the night -

She chuckles to herself, at how quickly she's falling into the role of the delinquent adolescent she's always wanted to be. And that last thought - well, that surprised even her. She'd never thought of, well, those things that much, they were just something that came to her when she needed it. But she had decided, with the fervour and sincerity of the young, that she was going to think about dealing with that particular problem a great deal, and consummate the act repeatedly and regularly. But that could wait. In the meantime -

- there it was again. Caught on the liminal border between her flimsy temporary dorm and the deepening twilight outside, she is frozen with the knowledge that she could see something moving out there. Lights? In the tree-line - now a field of blackness denser than the night sky - some constellation of tiny stars luminesced and danced in unknowable patterns. They weren't bugs, of that she's sure - they moved far to regularly for that, and flickered in a way that glow-worms didn't - but beyond that, she had not a clue. Caught between age-old lessons to shun the darkness of the night and a newfound adult curiosity, Morgan Khorsandi stands in the doorframe, and watches.

At first, it looked as if her prey would be more difficult than she liked. But then there was that moment, that precious moment of hesitation. Vespira's keen eyes could see that the woman now peering into the darkness. All the student would see is the strange flickering of lights at first. It was a bit far to try anything solid with her hypnotic techniques. She just had to get the woman to come closer and follow the strange lights. Slowly, the alien's body would begin to sway in a slow erotic dance. As more lights reflected off her body, the sparkling stars would seem to form into a feminine shape. Blinking her eyes may distort the image but slowly, the strange female form would become clearer in the lights but always remaining just distorted enough to think it is a play on the eyes.

Having the girl's attention, Vespira continued her dance. She would make the womanly shape dance as well. Perhaps she was creating an image of a wild spirit wishing to stand up against authority and curfew. As the sun sets, the lights would change colors as they mix and reflect the deep orange and violet rays. Eventually, the sun would be gone and only the light of the lamps, stars, and moon would reflect from her radiant form. With distance making it difficult, she could not make any specific gestures with the images she formed with her constellation of lights. The alien woman merely continued her dance, enjoy the crisp evening air caressing her bare body. The act of dancing itself was pleasure in itself for the monsterous being. She merely had to be patient and wait and see if she could will those legs to step closer to the dancing lights.

For a long moment, Morgan stands where she is, casting a long glance over her shoulder. The lights are beautiful - shimmering patterns of radiance, in whose after-images she can see shapes, patterns, things. She turns, takes a few steps forward, one hand involuntarily moving out, reaching towards the light in an attempt to possess it, claim it, and take it for her own. She can see joy in there; she can see beauty, beatific and saintly, and strange, exotic and carefree; she can see her mother -

Wait. What? 'Morgan Khorsandi, you have issues. Do not let the psychology students hear that you think you see wild, eroticised images of your mother in rustling leaves at twilight. Yes, there's something in it; no, you don't want to know what.' Morgan turns, chuckling to herself. She has sparred with her own neuroses for years, and it's only to be expected that they'd be out tonight. The spell is broken, and she's taken aback a little to realise that she's walked half the distance to the treeline. Shaking her head, she pads on callused little feet back to the temporary dorm, and shuts the door.

But as she does so - as the latch clicks into place - she's brought up short. It's as if she's shut the door on a limb, pinched off a vein, left something of herself behind out there. The breath catches in her throat, and she stumbles for a second. The idea of those lights out there in the darkness has lodged itself in the back of her mind, and clearly won't go away so easily. And besides - she's a grown-up. An adult. She can go about after dark, after curfew now - who'll stop her from having a look at whatever's out there in the trees? Gathering a warm coat around herself, she picks up a torch - bless his soul, Dad may have been an abusive monster, but he was nothing but practical - she proceeds back out the door, and stands on the verandah again, the torch held, switched off, by her side. Something's nagging at her, but she doesn't know whether it's telling her to go out into the gathering dark, or to retreat back to the comfort of bed.

Once more, she saw that her prey was going to be difficult. It was perhaps easier to just dash right for the victim but frontal attacks were never her preference. But progress was being made. The student was stepping out, reaching for the lights she could barely make out in the dimming light. Then the student stopped and was apparently cursing herself for being lured away by whatever is out there. Vespira's eyes narrow slightly as she watched her prey return to the dorm and shut the door. She sighed in slight annoyance. This one seemed a bit stronger than the other humans, interesting.

As she pondered how she would sneak into the building, the door opened again. The girl had returned with an off flashlight in hand. Perfect, she just needed a bit more nudging to go exploring. Vespira shifted into a different dance, causing the lights to change to a different color and pattern. Rather than trying to entrance the student, she would simply relax her with series of softer colors. Perhaps making it feel less threatening would goad the student to pursue her curiosity a bit further. This time though, if the student begins getting too close, she would move a bit further away. It would do no good if her true visage was spotted, she need to lure her a bit into the forest. But if student does get closer, she could add more to the hypnotic dance and increase the effects making her see a mirage of a female student dancing in the night sky. She knew a lovely place to play with her prey if she loses track of how far she walked. She will be like the will o wisp and lead this poor girl to her doom.

Before Morgan realises what's going on, she's off, into the dark. Wrapping her coat tightly around her body, she moves out, past the edge of the verandah, past the tree-line, and into the undergrowth. Try as she might, she can never quite catch the twinkling lights - they dance away and reappear on the other side of the clearing. They're certainly real, no trick of the mind - a few exploratory head-bobs from side to side confirms that - but she can never catch up with them. They pulse and shift alluringly, and, intrigued (at an intellectual, adventurous level, she assures herself), she heads out in pursuit.

She's only dimly aware of the fact that her stride's off. She takes a few long steps, confidently, almost thoughtlessly, walking after the lights, and then she falters, reluctantly walking after them, her body reasserting subconscious, instinctual reactions to the meaningless visual and auditory noise of the twilight forest. She goes on in this pattern, step-step-step, step ... step ... step, step-step-step. Some part of her mind - the rational, sardonic part - points out that she's practically dancing. A female student, dancing in the inky blackness of the forest, that's broken only by the points and streaks of light that cut through the canopy - and the swirling, dancing meteors up ahead.

An unknown amount of time passes. By the cuts and scratches on her bare feet, she must have been walking for some time, but the sun has not yet been swallowed up by the horizon, and the strange red-green half-light of the tropical sun has only begun to cast more lurid shadows in the trees. Morgan has utterly no idea where she is, and, being a consummate child of the city, is completely lost in this situation. A moment of fear floods through her mind, but by the subtle alchemies of adrenaline, this is quickly transmuted into a boldness, and resolve. She raises the flash-light like the Rod of Jesse, summoning its dread light-giving power (although something unconsciously prompts her not to examine the dancing lights - quickly rationalised as a desire not to kill her night vision, or perception of it).

It produces an underwhelming beam, that gutters and dims for short bursts, before returning to anaemic life, with a narrow cone. Odd. Very odd, especially considering that it's an LED torch that ... shouldn't ... flicker. She shakes it a few times, and feels a little of her resolution coagulating back into fear, but continues to press on, after the lights. Something's changed in her tread, though - it's lighter, more measured, full of nervous energy, and the impulse for flight.

Perfect, the woman was following the lights even if the poor student had no idea why. The canopy of trees made it hard to see anything besides the dancing stars that seemed to hit her eyes directly. Here, she could manipulate the woman further. The lights would shift in shape, forming into that familiar female form that she thought she saw earlier. But like an optical illusion, the woman's brain would start filling in the blanks for her. What was once just a constellation of stars would become more and more solid. Glistening skin seemed to reflect the light of the setting sun, outlining the luscious curves of the dancing woman's body. To further confuse the following student, Vespira would slither between around trees and bushes, making it hard to see any more detailed features of this presumably nude woman in the night.

The illusion and the snake woman would soon hear running water, bringing her closer to her goal. The woman and the lights would get further away, almost disappearing entirely as it seemed to be gaining ground again. With no known trails around, the student would only be left with the sound of running water as a guide. Should the woman follow it, she would find herself at a lake with a small waterfall feeding into it. The sound of splashing water would reveal a woman swimming in the pool. She seemed to have long thick hair and large luscious breasts. Any other details would be lost in the darkness of the evening, the sun disappearing over the horizon. Vespira kept her snakehalf submerged in the water, enjoying the feel of the cold water over her scales. She faced away from the woman, pretending she had not heard the woman's arrival should she follow this far.

Morgan continues to cautiously work her way forth through the undergrowth, following the elusive pattern of light, that flows between incoherence and recognisability, flirting with pattern-recognition. Having accepted that the lights are real, she has fallen back to the notion that she's hallucinating the patterns that she's seeing in them, and that the suggestions of her mother, of her class-mates, of alluringly androgynous forms are simply the workings of a tired mind seeing meaning where there's none to be found. Even so, she keeps walking, swinging her torch back and forth.

And then, just for a moment, her torch-beam catches something.In this infinite, twilight-streaked blackness, the two sources of illumination touch each other. The flickering glare of the torch temporarily flattens out the dancing lights, making them hard to pick out, and so she doesn't get a very good view of whatever is there. But she does see something. Someone? Smooth, dark skin, a gleaming olive-brown shoulder, that darts away as soon as she focuses on it. She may have imagined it - in fact, she probably did, it's probably nothing, probably just one of the gnarled limbs of a tree that caught the light in the right way. For a moment, she suspects that she's seeing things, that the whole excursion was a wild chase, but a little way off, beyond the tree that she's examining, a figure, limned in light, darts away, and into the distance. Points of light have melted together to become curves, curves have joined and fused into intriguing contours and topographies. For reasons that she has trouble picking apart, she hares off in pursuit of the fleeting figure. It's father than her, but along the course of this stream, her visibility is a little better, and, at the cost of a few scratches and a barked shin, she arrives at the pool.

She was expecting ... what? Certainly not this woman, bathing nude in the inky black water. Morgan stares slack-jawed at her - and her body - for a second or two, in an inseparable mix of fear, bemusement, envy, and, unexpectedly, fierce, burning, desire. But this is all wrong. She's heard this before. Her mother told her stories of parīyan, beautiful fey women who lived in ponds to lure the unwary - with dancing lights, no less. Kelpies, in European mythology, that would draw foolish lustful men (and, thought that sardonic part of her, more than a few women) to their deaths between their iron teeth. She's not a superstitious person, not a believer in magic or the unknown, but she believes in symbols, and her fear, caution, and apprehension coalesce around these notions and give her pause, for just a second. Then she raises her voice, and, pulling off a passing impression of confident nonchalance, speaks up, hoping to catch the woman's attention over the sound of the water.

'You were the lights, weren't you. How - why did you make them? What are you doing out here?'

Like a moth to a flame, her little student had come running to catch up to her. It would have truly been amusing to see the woman's face if she chose to hide instead. Then she could have watched the woman struggle with herself on why she ran and got herself lost in the woods like this in the first place. But the alien woman had her own personal desires she wanted satisfied and this woman would satisfy them one way or another. Vespira was more than willing to enjoy her bath while the woman watched but the student shocked her by actually calling out to her rather than being just a silent audience. Being caught alone out here in the woods, this was a delicate situation if she were to avoid having to chase this woman down. In the end, her prey was effectively hers as she could easily catch this one before she manages to find a way out of the woods.

"Hmm?" Vespira turned a bit to look back at her guest, she had to keep her tongue in check to avoid hissing to loudly a she spoke, "Who are you? I was enjoying this spring I found. What lights are you talking about? The lights on campus turn on every night. What are you doing here?" Thankfully the sound of waterfall helped hide the snakelike features of her voice. With a soft giggle she crossed her arms modestly before her luscious breasts before turning to the face the woman. She kept her distance to avoid revealing her tendrils to this woman. "Are you lost? I have not seen you on campus before. Are you a newcomer as well?" She may as well play as a student for the moment. Calming this one and making her lower her guard would make entrancing a bit easier and more vulnerable to her suggestions.

'There were lights. I know there were lights. I followed them here.'

Morgan stubbornly persists in recasting this as a kelpie-story. She's wound up, tight as a pocket-watch, and that energy has got to be let out somehow. She begins to pace, first back and forth, then round the edge of the pool. Without realising she's doing it - and even if she did, it's uncertain that she'd stop - she's transfixed the strange woman with the beam of her light. Something's not quite right about her - some part of her brain is roaring about uncanny valleys and, how the very near-normality of her face is cause for alarm - but the thick, heavy tiredness that she felt earlier surges back in force, and she prevents her from placing the source of her alarm. The beam stays where it is, though.

'And yes, I'm a newcomer, and lost on my very first day, clearly - 'I've come to myself dark, trackless wood, for the straight way was lost.''

The words of Dante's Inferno come unbidden to her lips. Psychologically speaking, that's not a very good sign.

'But I didn't see you on the plane - did you get here some other way? And I'm amazed that you got undressed back at the dormitory, clearly.'

A quick scan of the surroundings for cast-off clothes. Morgan feels a little more comfortable now. Quick-fire questions - nay, interrogation - from the literal and figurative high ground help her to feel more in control, less … enchanted by the glamour of this place. Or is that the effect of the glamour?

The student was definitely off balance over the whole matter and was struggling to make sense of it all. Vespira blinked and squinted her eyes as the light as shined right at her. There did seem to be an odd level of shine and perfection to the woman's body. Almost like looking at a polished doll. With her arms crossed over her breasts, she appeared like a woman who was caught skinny dipping in a public pool at night. "What are you talking about?" she replied with feigned annoyance, "I never said I was new, I have been here for weeks. How else would I know this lake was here? And why do you want to know where my clothes are? Are you going to run off with them in some sort of prank? Why would I wander around outdoors in the nude? That can really tear up your feet out here." She countered the questions with questions and logic of her own. The feigned irritation will be like she were truly a student not fond of these twenty question interogations.

Despite the annoying light shining at her, this did offer an opening for the alien woman to take advantage of. Adjusting to the light, her eyes opened and stared directly into Morgan's. She would use her hypnosis to try and keep the woman's gaze on her own and gradually wear away her willpower. "Look..." she sighed, "Perhaps we have gotten off the wrong foot. My name is Nyria. I did not come her naked. My clothes are on the other side of the lake hanging behind a tree to avoid the dew from the waterfall from soaking them. Whats your name. You did not come running the entire way barefoot did you? You should wash them here in the water to help soothe away any scratches you got from coming here." She would try giving the student some simple suggestions that may seem somewhat logical like cleaning her feet in the water. It may get the woman to come closer and be drawn further into her hypnotic gaze to be manipulated further.

Morgan grudgingly allows that there is some merit to the idea of sitting down, and cleaning herself off a little. Rolling up her trousers to her knees, she sits down on the edge of the pools, dangling her feet in the water. As a further reluctant afterthought, she drops the torch's beam a little, playing it back and forth across the surface of the water. There's still something bothering her, and the longer she talks to Nyria, the worse it gets. She blinks a couple of times, adjusts her glasses, and looks again, hard at the bathing woman. Nothing. Just a rather alluring looking woman, caught like some Greek nymph, bathing in an idyllic sylvan pool. At nine in the evening.

'Oh, sorry, perhaps I misunderstood - but didn't you say 'newcomer as well'? Is there someone else here, another new student perhaps? I definitely saw someone else out here, someone rather deficient in clothes, and followed them to this place - else how would I have found this place?

I'm Morgan, by the way - Morgan Khorsandi. It's - I won't say nice, but interesting - to meet you, Nyria.'

She holds out her hand, hesitates at the incongruity of the gesture, and laughs nervously. As if to dispel the tension a little, she advances a few inches, shuffling forward on her bony posterior to dangle her legs further into the icy water. It feels warm somehow, despite the chill - warm, lapping against her legs, softening her, comforting her. With a barely-concealed start, she realises that the wet warmth is coming from inside her. She hasn't lost control of herself, or her bladder, nothing so crass - rather, the beads of an unfamiliar moisture down between her legs come from a very different source.

She gave a soft smile as the student relaxed a little and took a seat at the edge of the lake. The light lowered some, no longer aimed to blind the alien woman. Things were going smoothly, the woman was relaxing and falling deeper under her hypnotic spell. Vespira was very much enjoying this little verbal cat and mouse game. The more Morgan questioned the little unimportant details, the longer she stayed around to satisfy her own established logic. "I did," she replied, "But I was not referring to myself. I had met a few newcomers during the day. My apologies for the confusion. As for anyone else out here, I have seen no one. Perhaps they took a different path. It seems silly to think a nudist is just exploring the woods."

With the offered hand, Vespira would move slowly closer. Her eyes would remain on Morgan's, using her hypnosis to draw those eyes to remain locked with her own. Her hips would sway a bit to send a flicker of lights into the woman's eyes to further relax her. The alien woman could not help but smell the faint arousal coming from the other woman. Perfect, she thought to herself. She accepted the hand with a gentle squeeze before releasing it. "I will say it is a pleasure to meet you, Morgan," she said softly, "But I must say, why in the world would you follow some naked woman out in the forest? Did you want to join in the fun?" She giggled in amusement before adding. "Would you like to join me in the water?" she asked, "Just change out of your clothes behind that bush to keep them dry." While her first was a question, her second statement was a subtle suggestion as she continued to stare into Morgan's eyes. It was time to prod at her mental defenses just a bit more.

'Well, there certainly was someone - I'm no Nancy Drew, and don't go hieing off into the woods at night without a very good reason - there must have been something about those lights. Perhaps once we've extracted you from your naiad's pool, we can go and look for whatever it was. If I can see you glowing in the fading dusk, then we'll have our answer. But in the mean-time ...'

Morgan colours slightly, bashfully crooking her head at the suggestion that she'd want to join in the fun. Did she?

'It's a beautiful evening, and I must admit you've found a beautiful spot. Damn it, I think I will join you in the water - that's a suitably university-age, liberated and care-free thing to do, isn't it?'

She's rambling. Nyria seems to be her elder, in experience and knowledge of this place if not years, and her physical perfection is rather intimidating. But, with her eyes locked on the other woman's she gains a measure of confidence, and begins to think more devil-may-care thoughts. Scrambling back onto the bank, she looks back over her shoulder, keeping that eye contact.

'I'll change out of some of my clothes, but I don't really feel quite as liberated as you yet, if that's OK. Damn, this isn't like me, but I suppose I'm drunk on this place, this light, and, last but not least, jetlag.'

She darts behind a tree, whence emerges the rustling of fabric, and the popping of toggles. After a minute or so, Morgan emerges, stripped down to her modest boyshorts and sports bra. She's practically the opposite of voluptuous - a short, scraggly scarecrow of a woman, fashioned from bones and corded muscle - but there's a certain taut grace to her - a grace that she futilely tries to hide with her hand. Her long dark hair, nearly black in this light, hangs ruffled around her like a mane. Grinning shyly, she creeps up to the edge of the pool, crouches, and begins to dip one leg in.

And then, dangled precariously on the edge of the pond, she stops. Something brushed against one of her legs, beneath the surface of the water. It was only the faintest of touches, but is all the more unnerving for that. She is afraid of whatever's under the surface of that lake, suspicious that Nyria's got something to do with it, worried that she's lost in a dark, lonely wood, and desirous of the woman's aid in watching her back against whatever's out here. She trembles, useless adrenaline coursing through her body without outlet, and then, unthinking, begins to lower her other leg into the water. Her eyes drift down to it, but - and maybe it's just the condensing mist on the lenses of her glasses - she's in a haze, and seems to be having trouble concentrating. After a few moments, she regathers her composure, and locks cautious, watchful eyes with the other woman, searching, probing, for something.

Nyria ... ?'

But she doesn't stop moving. Somehow, against all her better instincts, she slips her other leg into the pool, and then her lower body. She barely even causes a splash.