Voices call her name in silken whispers — a stream of formless words, spiralling down through broken rafters into the ruins of an earthly haven — and so she awakens.

Dawn paints the edges of a new day's awareness with gentle strokes of grey and silver, scattering raindrops over her isle of long repose. Even as her eyelids flutter open, a single heavy droplet falls like a first kiss upon her throat, slowly trickling down her breasts, spilling over her stomach, before melting away in the tender heat that rises from between her legs. A moan of pleasure parts her lips — and so she awakens.

Memory escapes her: how long her body may have lain at rest, petal-pressed to a bed of leaves, idle in slumber, is beyond her; how or why she came to be is a mystery at one with the great unknown. Her mind holds only images of full moons and crowns of lilies, but now she reaches up to the new light with a maiden's fingertips pale as both.

Another droplet falls, this time parting her lips and tempting her tongue with a flavour sweet as wine, textured creamy and white as honey-milk. And so she awakens, and rises from her bed, slipping close to the cold cement wall, running herself over its paint-scarred surface, naked form caressing naked form. As she tries to scale its length, seeking like a climbing vine the opening overhead, brittle leaves of plaster break off against her skin, powdering nipples and bottom with faint sparkles in sepia tones. Throwing back her head, she lets her mouth gape wide, greedy now for more than her fill of the strange rains that stain her wine-dark lips. But a deeper hunger is fast taking hold, a hunger the rain and voices and caresses will flare but do nothing to feed. Wild are her eyes as she surveys her chambers from behind a veil of damp dark tresses; yearning are her sighs, as she licks her fingertips clean.

Between her legs, a pulse begins throbbing, with a more potent beat than that which merely carries life throughout her body. And so the voices guide her to a window-sill devoid of glass, luring her without, summoning her forth into the forest, a long-lost world of silvered green.

Outside her temple she finds herself in a grove, wherein the rains are ever withheld by a close-knit circle of ghostly trees. No birds sing, but the voices grow louder now, swelling and swirling among the mists that rise like exhalations from the earth's emerald breast. Grass and leaves yield only briefly beneath her feet, then at once rearrange themselves to masque all traces of her passage.

All is stillness but for the mists and merest hints of a melting breeze. No birds sing, but she thinks she begins to recognize words in the voices; perhaps they are the murmurings of lilies wild, flowers never given such a form as this. Or perhaps there are many others, just like her, each awakening alone in this moment, finding themselves lost and freed of all but an enthralling need.

Either way, such thoughts are comforting.

Now the breeze sweeps up her tresses, and lets them fall from invisible fingers; its unseen caresses tempt her forth, artfully, little by little, beyond the rowans' enchanted ring. Here a road has been carved through the forest, climbing up towards the grey horizon, but she does not follow it, for the amber stones cut sharp as diamonds into the tender soles of her feet. Instead she takes a pathway more oblique, wending her way through lacy ferns, to where the first hints of golden sunlight set fire to a liquid sheet of smoky green.

And here she falls, by the edge of the pond, wistfully eying the water lilies that float like petaled swans upon its surface of serenity.

Leaning forward, letting tresses trail through the murky deeps, she gasps to see there a face and form gazing back at her just as wistfully: all hungry eyes and full blooming lips, moon-bright skin and tree-slender limbs. In tandem they reach for one another, the admired and admiring. Unspoken in their synchronicity, wetted hands cup delicate breasts and dance in slow spirals over a trembling belly. Moistened nipples harden into tiny stars, as kisses and fingertips finally part the flower that pulsates with a melody far sweeter than any flower ever did sing.

And so she opens herself up, fingertips vanishing one by one, swallowing voices whole and taking into herself this reflection, revealing the secrets of her yearning, leaning forward to drown in a kiss. A smile, a breathless sigh, a laugh; these living things pass through an embrace that draws each maiden closer, until the waters at last give way and they are one within. And she realizes now just what she has become, this lily girl who died long ago yet lingers on for love.

And she realizes now just one touch will never be enough.

She is woken this time by the light of stars, a thousand tiny stars cast like a veil of sequins over the pond's rippled ceiling. And though in her idle hours of contemplation time no longer takes a form, her eldest senses let her know that this must be night: cold wintry night, when dreams take their rightful place in the world and dance free beneath the moonlight.

So she swims up to the surface world and floats across to that very bank where realization found in a reflection not long ago guided her home to her self. Even as she breaks clear of the water she is singing; though she knows not why, she chooses not to question her own instincts. For even as she breaks clear of the water, a flower of longing unfurls itself once more.

On through the night she follows the echoes of song through woodland and forest deep, and each step not touching the earth brings every desire more fully into being. With each breath ragged, all senses trembling, at long last she reaches the shrouded sanctuary, where marble angels in floral embrace stand guard over those long-slumbering, and here her song mingles too sweetly with that of another, serpent-entwining around a lullaby held silent beyond the time of dreams.

Shadows stir and part like curtains as he comes to her fresh from the leafy earth, bearing a wreath of death-white lilies to crown his chosen bride-to-be. She kneels before him on all fours, surrendering to the ceremony, understanding the only gift she has brought to him is the quivering tenderness of her body.

A lone sigh sets itself free, as he places the garland upon her head. Gentle fingers but oh-so-cold raise her face to gaze upon him: a creature whom she could only love, wings blue-black darkening against a paler night, a long black tail curling slowly about her throat, and eyes reflecting all devotion yet there too a shared sense of longing. She smiles and dares the taste of his sex, already hardening beneath her touch of curiosity; hunger only swelling twofold as he slips between her lips. Silk upon silk, she remembers the taste of the rain as a warm memory, and so begins to suckle him, hoping for the chance to drink.

Yes, I know you...

Thoughts pass between them like pure touch, yet no warning comes for the tensing of the coil around her neck, as he leaves her early, wanton and wanting. Guiding her head toward the pillow of the earth, he raises her up, spreading wide her folds for his admiration, and readying her for his entry. The velvet tail now loosens its hold, languidly flickering over her breasts, and a roughened tongue begins tracing slow patterns along the supple side of her thighs. There it lingers, tantalizingly close to where she would have him, still denying her most artful invitations. But at length she feels him against her there, pressing hard and heavy, while hands too desperate to retain thoughts of tenderness squeeze her nipples, knead her breasts, and draw her up to fall back against him.

I created you...

His voice smooth and slurred enters her mind as her body yields itself to him, their shared cry at once devoured by and subsumed amongst the night's dense secrecy. Like drowning, this sensation — for how cold and complete he feels inside, as though wholeness itself could have no meaning without him there within.

Needing for him to want this too, she closes her petals around him tight, drinking him in more deeply than her lips would have allowed, letting go of all else in the world so that she might possess him, just for a moment, so completely, just like this. For if this is her purpose in being, then so shall she live that purpose wholly and wilfully, nymph of night-time abandonment and dawning sexual release that she is.

Fingers press against her lips, and she tastes and smells there other nymphs, other sister-kin, but such knowledge only feeds her will until there is nothing left of her, and nothing left of him: just one creature wholly devoid of any conscious wish or thought beyond one carnal need.

And in the final hour before dawn, at last they drink of one another, and seal their vows with droplets of honey-milk spilling freely over one another's lips.

A moan of pleasure escapes her soul — and so she awakens.