The night is long and deep and smoke-filled, and Samaira’s moon-bright eyes take in everything with a strange sort of disconnection.
She isn’t quite sure why she’s here, in Denocte. Perhaps because the doctors at the hospital had told her to take a night off, to take a break. Perhaps because she is trying not to think about midnight eyes and gilded skin and twin lives that are seemingly lost to the world. Regardless of the reason, the earthen woman walks slowly through the crowded streets of the Denocte. Above her flies Alaunus, a light above in the sky as the moon.
Samaira is glad for the noise, glad for the sound of so many voices that she can barely discern her own thoughts. Glad for the way the bodies sweep her up and down the street like the sea, letting them take her where they please.
The altars pass, and the pegasus does not approach them. Tonight she does not want to think about the missing and the gone and the left-behind. Tonight she wants to forget, to distract her mind from the thoughts it spins like a web in the rooms of the hospital when she is not busy with patients. She pushes down the rising tide inside her again, again, again, and pushes forward, wings drooping slightly at her side as though useless.
She moves away from the busiest parts of the market, away from the stalls selling all manner of wares; from flowers, to decor, to candles. She moves away from where the children and children at heart are bobbing for apples and taking part in other activities. The joy in their laughter tugs at her too harshly.
Instead Samaira finds herself standing where the bonfires are less crowded, where the silence is drawn and almost reverential. The tent looks out of place in the market, and the darkness of the canvas against the rest of the court looks like a portal to another world. The woman wonders what world she will find if she enters it, what sorts of heartbreaks could possibly lie in the next dimension, or any other.
She begins to walk toward it, as a silent rush of wings announces Alaunus’ landing at her side to join her. Samaira almost doesn’t notice the man made of moonlight and stars, too focused on the shadow inside the entrance to the tent, until he speaks. She pauses, turns moon silver eyes upon him.
“Do you assume to know what the goddess has decreed about my life?” her accent is smoky and warm, but beneath it there is a solemness, a longing, “I do not.” While Samaira isn’t sure which goddess he refers to, she has not spent much time considering the one patron to her home court. Vespera is as much a mystery to her as any of the other deities, and Samaira has never been particularly spiritual. All her life she has had to get by on her own, other than her parents, because nobody wanted her alive.
“If you do, please enlighten me,” there is a breath after the words, a sigh. She stands too close to him and when she shifts her weight the down of one of her wings might brush against his side. If this is the mandate of her life, Samaira is not sure which would be better: to have left Irindor or to have stayed.
"Speaking."
She isn’t quite sure why she’s here, in Denocte. Perhaps because the doctors at the hospital had told her to take a night off, to take a break. Perhaps because she is trying not to think about midnight eyes and gilded skin and twin lives that are seemingly lost to the world. Regardless of the reason, the earthen woman walks slowly through the crowded streets of the Denocte. Above her flies Alaunus, a light above in the sky as the moon.
Samaira is glad for the noise, glad for the sound of so many voices that she can barely discern her own thoughts. Glad for the way the bodies sweep her up and down the street like the sea, letting them take her where they please.
The altars pass, and the pegasus does not approach them. Tonight she does not want to think about the missing and the gone and the left-behind. Tonight she wants to forget, to distract her mind from the thoughts it spins like a web in the rooms of the hospital when she is not busy with patients. She pushes down the rising tide inside her again, again, again, and pushes forward, wings drooping slightly at her side as though useless.
She moves away from the busiest parts of the market, away from the stalls selling all manner of wares; from flowers, to decor, to candles. She moves away from where the children and children at heart are bobbing for apples and taking part in other activities. The joy in their laughter tugs at her too harshly.
Instead Samaira finds herself standing where the bonfires are less crowded, where the silence is drawn and almost reverential. The tent looks out of place in the market, and the darkness of the canvas against the rest of the court looks like a portal to another world. The woman wonders what world she will find if she enters it, what sorts of heartbreaks could possibly lie in the next dimension, or any other.
She begins to walk toward it, as a silent rush of wings announces Alaunus’ landing at her side to join her. Samaira almost doesn’t notice the man made of moonlight and stars, too focused on the shadow inside the entrance to the tent, until he speaks. She pauses, turns moon silver eyes upon him.
“Do you assume to know what the goddess has decreed about my life?” her accent is smoky and warm, but beneath it there is a solemness, a longing, “I do not.” While Samaira isn’t sure which goddess he refers to, she has not spent much time considering the one patron to her home court. Vespera is as much a mystery to her as any of the other deities, and Samaira has never been particularly spiritual. All her life she has had to get by on her own, other than her parents, because nobody wanted her alive.
“If you do, please enlighten me,” there is a breath after the words, a sigh. She stands too close to him and when she shifts her weight the down of one of her wings might brush against his side. If this is the mandate of her life, Samaira is not sure which would be better: to have left Irindor or to have stayed.
![[Image: 13481303_KpOIcOG7drxHK9U.png?1556314753]](https://file.toyhou.se/images/13481303_KpOIcOG7drxHK9U.png?1556314753)
we'll fulfill our dreams
and we'll be free
