TORIELLE
It's only me who wants to wrap around your dreams
The festival had been everything that Torielle could have possibly imagined. The multicoloured tents, the vendors with their wares, the joyous sounds of children playing and souls from all walks of life coming together in celebration. While there was still a secret part of her that felt the sour tug of homesickness, the overall experience lifted a weight that had been smothering. As the sun sank into the horizon, it scattered golden rays across the landscape casting a blanket of warm hues. Soon there would be nightfall, and with it, the moonlit dance.
The mare cast her gaze over to the designated bonfire area, where the denizens of Delumine had placed smooth stone as a way to protect the lush greenery from the flame. It also served a dual purpose, providing even ground for those who choose to participate in the dance. She had been glancing at it all day, wandering the temporary shop fronts with her friend, eager for the dance to begin. It had been an age since she had indulged in a bonfire dance and the itch in her bones would not be satisfied until she danced the night away.
It had not been so long ago that the fields they stood upon now had been filled with snow and ice and strangers. With the fresh shoots of spring and the scents of baked goods now filling the air, it chased those thoughts away before she could dwell on them. The area had been transformed almost completely, and she knew that once the festivities were over there would be little trace that it had occurred at all, save for perhaps the circle of the bonfire, which would grow over and disappear in time for the following spring. It was almost startling how easily mother nature would reclaim that which was hers, mending the scars that were left behind by the creatures who lived upon her hallowed grounds.
If only the heart could heal so quickly, so seamlessly. Lost in her reverie, like a ghost emerging from the shadows, she spotted him. The dame hadn’t even allowed herself to think on him, and yet he appeared, as if summoned. As if by fate. There was a lurch in her heart, now heavy with uncertainty. She stared openly for a long moment before steeling herself, knowing that it would only be a matter of time before she would be spotted, even among the crowd of other attendees with beautiful scarves and jingling bells.
Torielle turned to her stardusted friend, excusing herself, trying to hold back the panic at the thought of leaving the relative safety of another woman in exchange for the hulking beast. It was better to make the first move, to control this situation as best as she could. At least this time there were witnesses and it would be easier to slip away if she needed.
Each step closer to the stallion was heavier, her heart thrumming in her chest, the anticipation at a near breaking point. When they had last spoken in this very same land, she had run from him. Jarek, and his strange ways, his words of prophecy from gods she did not know. This brute who, as much as she wanted to ignore it, looked too much like her father. The interaction had been overwhelming and the mare hadn’t known how to respond then- truthfully she didn’t know how to respond now. She’d mulled over their last encounter only a handful of times in the interim and had never made sense of it. The Sages would have told her to accept the divine intervention and wholeheartedly give in. Something about that insistence of blind faith bothered her. But she had said that if they were fated to meet as his gods had spoken, then they would do so again. It should have been no surprise that he would seek her here. Maybe she should have provided additional caveats, like a particular lunar phase, or conjunction of the stars. Though, the stallion had been very determined, even then- he probably would have found a way to find her regardless of the obstacles she had put in his way.
The only way to move past this uncomfortable prickle along her spine, this uncertainty that Jarek brought with him, would be to confront it and move forward. His head turned, scanning the crowd and the maiden knew that he would see her coming, even if the festival muffled the sound of her bells, the chime that signaled her approach wherever she roamed. Torielle came to a stop a respectable distance away, taking a deep breath into her shaking bodice, trying to empty herself of the unease that sought to pull her limbs out from under her. She was being entirely irrational.
“Fancy meeting you here,” she said, trying to be coy and playful, but her vocals could not shake the tension that coursed through her body.
art by the-day-of-shadow character by scapeh table by sunny
