Whitefeather, his mate, was curled around his neck in the form of a snowy ferret, probably her favorite form for cuddling as an animal, though she was never quite as happy there as in her owl or human forms. As the morning<div class="floatright">(http://i.imgur.com/YmLhuIh.jpg)</div>crept in through the windows, she squeaked softly and nuzzled at his chin, burrowing her tiny black eyes away from the encroaching brightness.<br/><br/>Downstairs, though the irrepressible Lambent Spark Dancer was hard at work indulging in her first and truest love: dance. She had kicked the minstrel out of bed and dragged him out to the sleepy common room, where she set him to playing a rapid tune and began her dance. She spun like a top and shimmered with diaphanous white silks that barely lung to her dusky curves. Somehow the thing trails managed to never reveal everything, though they hinted at enough to keep the slavering men on the common floor slavering. She loved this part: stoking the desires of a crowd, driving them into a frenzy of lust and jealousy, subtly timing her twirls and flips to drive this one to that one, to encourage love or hate as she desired. The feeling of power was like a drug.<br/><br/>How had she wasted so much time on trying to protect these weak mortals? Coddling them and sacrificing for them? They were toys. Five hundred million different ways to get what she wanted. For removing that particular scale from her eyes, she was eternally grateful to Damiel.