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They walked in silence for a bit as he waited for the warmth to leave his cheeks, getting a grip on himself. "I'm usually out here during the day." he explained at last, stepping around a spindly raspberry bush that had been picked clean weeks before by the deer and squirrels. "You can see everything better then, but sometimes, I come out here later at night if I need to get away and think. That's how I found where we're going."

He paused, and then veered to his right, as the leafy terrain began an upward incline. As he did so, he checked his watch briefly, finding that they still had plenty of time to get there. "We're probably going to have to wait a few minutes once we get there, if that's okay." he warned. "Its one of those things you can really only appreciate for a little while each night..."

Zhane hoped he wasn't making her have second thoughts about him with this venture. He knew it sounded bad at face value when someone you'd only met from online once before suddenly wanted to lead you off into the woods in the middle of the night...

As Seiji babbled irately, Zhane shifted the baby in his arms to look him in the eye as he prattled on. "Really?" he asked him, raising his brows as if he understood perfectly what the little one was saying. "I never thought of it that way before. You don't say..." Just because he was little, after all, didn't mean Seiji didn't want anybody to listen to him when he was talking...

As they had their 'exchange', the slight hill they were on crested into an open area of tall grasses, in the middle of which was a large, hollow, petrified tree. Its size alone told the tale of how old it must have been. The first time he'd found it, Zhane had guessed it was roughly the area of his room.

He paused, looking over his shoulder at Nani to confirm she was still there and then checking first the sky, and then his watch. "This is it." he told both her and the dragonchild he carried. "And looks like we just made it." he added.

"You'll see." he smiles at her, moving around the side of the tree from where she was, where age had broken away a large portion of the base of the trunk, allowing entrance into its hollow for whomever was smart enough to duck first. And duck he did, bringing both him and Seiji inside of the tree, where the infant's babbling was amplified by the echos, making him sound quite booming for one so small.

Inside smelled of sweet earth, and the floor of it was blanketed by cool moss and countless spindly little white buds, which looked a bit curled in on themselves on their stems from the lack of light.

Overhead, as if looking up from a jagged well, the tree had no top, and afforded them a window that peered directly up into the night sky.

"C'mon in!" he invited, seating himself on the blanket of flowers and moss with Seiji in his lap.

As Nani got settled, what Zhane had hinted at, began to happen. Overhead, the face of the moon began to drift into view across the circular opening of the treetop, the clouds rolling away from it to bare its face fully.

For a moment, as everything (and everyone) was bathed in its pale light, it seemed nothing had changed. Then, gradually, the moon's influence, and why Zhane had considered this place special, became known.

On all sides of them, the buds twitched and then began to unfurl, a foam of white star-shaped flowers spreading around them until it seemed there was no green at all. Tiny petals stretched upward, as if reaching in vain for the moon far above them.

At the same time, the walls of the weathered old tree came to life with thousands of iridescent pinpricks as the glowworms that had been quietly perched there, out of sight of predators became incensed by the onset of night and began to signal in the dusky blue shadows. What had once been a dreary-looking dead tree had become almost an ethereal place.

It was not enchanted by any means, but in the world he was presented, Zhane had found his wonderments where he could. And, magic or not, it was quite lovely.

For his part, Zhane beamed both at her and at Seiji's reactions. He'd been worried that, with access to magical places such as enchanted glens with mermaid lakes, something like this might not have impressed either of them.

"Nice, huh?" he said to the child as he leaned forward to stretch a hand toward the wall of the tree, nudging at one of the glow-worms until it crawled onto his finger. It had stopped blinking for a moment, distressed, and then began again once it settled as he brought it closer to Seiji's view so he could have a better look before looking back to Nani.

"When I found this place," he explained, keeping his voice quiet so as not to distract her awe. "I was really torked off at my dad. He told me he was sick of me wasting my time wandering around in muddy backwoods that they were just going to plow over and build apartments on someday and that there was nothing out here worth seeing. And when -this- happened...." he said, looking about himself again at the ephemeral lights and the tiny flowers "....it just made me think sometimes he's got no idea how wrong he is."

As she kissed his cheek, his face flushed hot and he looked back at her a moment, feeling himself smile. "You're welcome..." he managed quietly, seeming mindless of the insect inching off of his finger and onto Seiji's, tickling over the child's hand as it explored the new terrain it had been presented.

"It is..." he agreed, watching her as she extended her wings, and no longer sure if he was talking about the hollow itself or something else. Collecting his thoughts again, he gave his head a forceful shake. "I wish it lasted longer....as soon as the moon passes over, it'll be just like we found it." he lamented, looking up at the moon's face still squarely over the opening for the moment.

"I just....you showed me somewhere that was special to you, I thought it was only fair..." he chuckled a bit, realizing it sounded just as awkward as it felt to say.

The glowworm climbed onto Seiji's nose as it was brought to his face and inched up the bridge of it to sit on his forehead, seeming content to stay there as it resumed its glistening and glowing.