[AW] a midsummer night's dream

[Pavetta]

p a v e t t a - - - Again, that predatory smile endured a moment too long, cold, dead eyes a touch too hungry. Perhaps Pavetta ought to feel uneasy or repelled by the black unicorn and her cryptic words and wolfish smiles. Questions leading to more questions, promises swathed in shadow and mist; the kiss of death lingering on her cheek. A black maze riddled with fog and danger and it didn’t deter Pavetta as it probably should have.  A ghost. There were ghosts in Pavetta’s life, too. Some had faded away; others more prominent and permanent. The father she had dreamed about running away with on his many adventures in the wild of the Rift. Her husband; the braids of his hair and the smell of earth, sweat, and rain. The pyre burning, stars and embers blazing overhead.   Pavetta didn’t fail to notice the sudden cold in the black unicorn's eyes, the tight frown when she had mentioned a husband; however subtle the signs might have been. A sore spot—disapproval. Again, why did she care what a stranger should think of her? Somehow it did matter, a great deal, but Pavetta could not bring herself to feel ashamed of the pride in her ceremonial union. The touch of a man, the caress of a lover, whispers in the dark. Pavetta desired such intimacy, such closeness; the fire lit between two souls.  But it did not mean she was a prisoner, a captive. At one point, she had been, a captive among powerful women. A frightened woman-child paraded before potential suitors and husbands at her time with the Order. And then she had been shipped down the mountain to marry into a war clan. But there, for the first time in her life, she had fought for a choice. For him. She had chosen Fearghal and he had chosen her. There was a certain freedom embracing her sexuality, a bold independence that she had not known before Fearghal. He had taught her much about the ways between a man and a woman and opened a door she could not close. He had never sought to control her; he had tended the embers, let them smolder and burn, but never had he suffocated her.  She had not loved him, perhaps, but she had chosen him. Pavetta did not feel the need to explain herself or her pride in her marriage ritual, but perhaps one day she would, if they should ever speak again. For now she was content in her confidence, in her passionate nature and the need for companionship. Pavetta could admire any woman who did not need engage in such frivolous affairs but she might pity them also. Find me and I will show you. One last caress. And then the shadow unicorn was gone, only the whisper of a name remaining--Calliope. Pavetta was left alone, wondering if it had all only ever been a hallucination; the aftermath of one too many goblets of wine.  a pearl in pigshit, a diamond on the finger of a rotting corpse, creature in whom nothing, but nothing, remains of an elven woman ---

@Calliope