[WARNING: This story is very silly and contains overly emotional waterfowl. It also need editing, stat.]

It was a dark and stormy night, two figures stood in the misting rain, gazing lovingly into each others eyes. They stood in silence, lost in contemplation and growing ever more besotted with one another. Finally one spoke.

“I love you,” it said, quite emotionally.

“I love you too,” the second figure answered.

“But there is something I must tell you, my love,” the first responded. “I fear it will cause some great contention among us.” The figure hung its head.

“What my love, my life?” asked the second figure anxiously. “Nothing you say could ever come between us!”

The first figure sighed, quite overcome, “It would be very unkind of me not to tell you, my snow-white love, but I am torn!” It shook its head in despair. “If I tell you, you shall surely leave me, I fear not even our boundless love can hold us together!”

The second figure lay its shapely head against its chest in anguish, and gazed up with a dewy black eye. “How can you think such things of me?” it warbled sadly, “I would sooner die than leave you!”

The first turned to look out over the rain-spattered pond. Its noble visage torn with remorse. “I shall tell you then, my graceful bird.” It paused a moment and then continued quickly. “I am no swan.”

The second figure’s head rose from its chest, as it gazed astonished at the first. “My love! How can you say such a thing?” it cried “Such cruel jokes do not become thee!”

The first bowed its head to the ground, and keened softly in despair. “It is but true my love! It needs be that I tell you this tonight, for with the rising sun I shall be a swan no more!” It raised its head to the rolling clouds above. “From this morrow in the early fall until the coming of the summer I shall be as those who walk the land around us!” it wept “You cannot love a man, I would not ask it of you.” The figure moved closer to the pond’s bank.

The second figure gazed at him quietly, and after a moment spoke. “I wondered many times where your thoughts had flown these last few weeks, I feared that you had found some other pond and grown tired of me.” The figure moved slowly up beside the first, and gazed lovingly into its eyes. “Yet this I understand, and I shall wait for thee, through the passing of the seasons, if you will but only promise me this. Do not forget me here.” The first figure bobbed its head in answer too overcome to speak.

The storm worked its way overhead, its dancing shadows hiding the two figures until the suns dim rays outlined the pair. One underpaid and overworked elementary school teacher, and one graceful swan.