Beauty and the Beast, meet Bookish and the Fish!
The Lucky Noodle
Etchemin x Harper
jinxgirl5 | Yushika
Not Official
Once upon a time there were two Noodles, a male and a female. Both were born of water, but they were very different. The female chose to leave the water for land. She was shy and didn’t easily make friends, preferring the company of books instead. The male rarely ever left the water. He developed fan-like fins and could dive deeper and longer than those of his kind, but he too did not make friends easily. Both were often alone, but they were content.
One day the female was out walking, looking for a comfortable place to sit and read her book. By chance the tree she chose to settle under was next to the lake the male called home. She did not know this nor did she notice the male, for she had quickly become entranced in the spell woven by her book, but he noticed her.
Few knew of the male who lurked deep in the waters of the lake, for he rarely showed himself. He would watch hidden just below the surface. Sometimes he would steal trinkets left unattended on the shore, for he was a simple creature and liked to have bits of pretty to line the inside of his den. When the female first came he watched her as well. She never had anything pretty he wished to take, nor did she ever enter his watery domain. She returned often, but she was always alone. He started to become curious, and drifted closer and closer every time.
One day the female settled under the tree in her usual spot and began to read as she always had. So focused on her book was she that she did not see the dark clouds beginning to spread across the sky until the first blast of cold wind hit her. Startled, she looked up; it was only then that she noticed how much darker it had become. Her gaze fell down to the lake and with a thrill of alarm she noticed something large moving under the water close to shore. As she gathered up her book and prepared to flee for shelter she could have sworn she saw a flash of orange, and then the large shadow was gone. The female stayed away from the lake for many days after that, but it was such a good spot to read that finally she convinced herself that her eyes had been playing tricks on her and she returned.
The male was happy when the female returned. He rarely gave much thought to those who visited his lake when they had gone, but he had missed seeing her sitting on the shore with her book. Normally the female would always be looking at her book, but lately she would glance up at the water. The male tried to stay out of sight, but from the way the she would sometimes flinch he was sure the female spotted him. But she never left and he never came forward, so soon there was an unspoken understanding between the two of them. In time the female found it comforting to see those flashes of orange and occasional glows of pale blue, just as the male found a sense of deep content whenever the female returned to visit yet again.
