Oh, I liked her smile. It was like… it was like the color yellow. Melted butter, daisy hearts, warm spring days.
In comparison, I felt blue. Not in a sad way. Like midnight, very calm and still, poised on the eggshell edge of time-- sunset to my left, sunrise to my right.
You understand?
I also liked how polite she was to Furfur. It never sat right with me when strangers treated him as anything less than equal. He gave a few wags of his tail-- the most positive reaction the other girl would get-- before running off to the water’s edge. The silver bellies of little fish were flashing in the tumbling waves, and he splashed around determined to catch one. “He has a short attention span,” I explained to Maret with a grin that only broadened when he retorted with some rude comment about how absurdly boring I was sometimes.
It was a small blessing she didn’t linger too long on my compliment-- I felt a flush of embarrassment to have said something so petty. I really didn’t believe beauty gave anyone more value in this life, although most people seemed convinced otherwise. When she revealed she was from Dawn court, my eyes lit up. I hadn’t met many Deluminians. In fact I think the only one I met had been a tree, so I didn’t exactly have a balanced perspective of what they were like.
“Oh, I’ve never been to the court proper! What’s it like?” We had a love of questions in common, and an interest in stories. But it had never occurred to me to share my tales, not unless someone asked and certainly not in writing. I guess I was too private to willingly part with my stories, or stories given to me. “I’m from Denocte.” It felt too much like bragging to say my mom’s the sovereign... and anyway, I had to remind myself, she wasn’t anymore. In my mind Isra would always be a queen, drawing others to her like a warm flame on a cold night. I admired her so much that I sometimes forgot what it meant to be a mother, a child-- that I would always have (would always be) a part of her. Sometimes she felt as far from me as the moon.
And then there was Eik, so down to earth we used to play a game of looking beneath his hooves for roots. “My dad is from Solterra, but I’ve never been. Have you?” The sandy kingdom beguiled me. I found myself often thinking of it, building cities of sand in my mind. I think I only stayed away for as long as I did out of fear that reality would not be nearly as wonderful as my imagination.
@Maret <3
