[AW] hangin next to you [meeting]

[Maude]

The maiden awoke to the sound of crickets and night birds, easing into the melodious melodies of the creatures which were alive and active during the day. Sleeping most often during these small, late hours of the night, and early, early in the evening, her two rests were usually bridged, lately, with prayers, or work on her songs. This morning, she had intended to do both as soon as she rose – but the sound of someone calling to others draws her attention, as she stretches her rump high into the air, and arches her sleep stiffened back, her wakening yawn cut short by her surprise that someone else is not only out and about at this early hour, but demanding a parlay of some sort. The ginger and cream youth wonders if she should answer the call. Post traumatic stress dictates that she should be wary, and perhaps not go at all; some meetings were with evil Gods, pretending to be servants of those who were good, or concluded in the attack of hungry, foal snatching griffons. Some meetings, though, were just meetings, she reminds herself, looking around momentarily for Evangeline, who would certainly tell her as much. Besides, it wouldn’t do for Maude to avoid everything for fear it was not what it seemed. Curiosity wins the day. She approaches the tall tower and its smaller companions with the same reverence she had the first time; it is both imposing and impressive, for a girl who’d never seen a building of such size as more than a Goddess cast mirage. Unlike the last time, however, someone had beckoned her inside, and so, rather than simply dawdling a safe distance from its shadow, the girl approaches, her trot easing into a slow, cadent walk, that allowed her to gawp and gaze at the sight of the towering thing above her, all the way to its threshold. Her small hooves create an equally small clamor on the stone as she enters, pausing to stare at the leaders, so clearly a pair that it steals the hopelessly romantic girl’s breath for a moment. Marked by moons and splashed with color upon white canvasses, they are matched, like the horizon to the sky, and it makes Maude’s poetic heart flutter and skip with more than the sheer nerves she feels entering a confined space, already filling with strangers. Cress and Damascus are not here, nor is Evangeline, she thinks to herself with a frown, once she manages to look away from the more prominent figures in the room; her spring green gaze slips momentarily over the wearied warrior, her heart tightening with apprehension at his tough appearance, before she quickly appraises the galaxy-splashed bay. Feeling entirely out of place and alone, the young healer awkwardly shuffles towards a place in the back. so give me hope in the Darkness that I will see the Light

Art by neverrmind @ DA