TORIELLE
It's only me who wants to wrap around your dreams
He was relaxing at least, and that made it a little less intimidating, a little less frightening. Maybe it shouldn’t have put her at some level of ease- the whole situation was just outlandish, really. She’d never met another person quite like Jarek. She had encountered bold, brash, and inconsiderate, had tangled with a variety of souls who believed the world owed them everything. Never had the mare encountered someone who believed the gods gifted them strangers, and she wondered briefly if this was an elaborate ploy and merely something he did to impress any woman he happened to meet. Torielle preferred that idea, lest she be the only object of his affection. The thought that she might not be the only one was somewhat soothing, even if it wasn’t something she could prove.
The mare shifted uncomfortably as he asked for her name, unable to meet his gaze. In the several lives she had traveled, the mare had encountered more than her fair share of fae creatures and had adopted some of their customs over time; the ones that made sense to her, anyways. There was a great power that lay in knowing one’s name, and it was rarely something to be given lightly. Some believed it to “give” a name was like giving over one’s self to the fae creature in question. ‘May I have your name’ was the same thing as to say ‘may I have you?’ While Torielle had few qualms about sharing her name with some of the denizens of Novus, she had done so with caution. ‘You may call me by’ provided them a moniker to use without granting them the same power, and yet the mare was apprehensive about doing even that much with Jarek. He had asked to ‘know her name’ and that felt too close to asking to know her, intimately. The question sat uneasily in her chest as she debated what to tell him.
The doe cast a look over her shoulder, hoping to look to Veil for some kind of confirmation on what to do, to know that her friend was still there. As she did, she saw the star woman speaking with a cloaked figure. It must have been the tail end of the conversation, as they both moved away across the festival to pursue the fruits of that interaction. Torielle’s gut twisted, hard. The realization that she was now alone, and would have to face this stallion alone swallowed her whole.
She’d only had the confidence to confront him in this space because it was so busy, because she’d had her friend nearby, because it had felt safe. Now, with Jarek next to the bonfire, though the festival swirled on around them, she could not have felt more isolated. The mare shifted her weight, trying to keep the look of panic from surfacing, to not look like a prey-thing before this predatory man.
“You..” she started, her heart hammering in her chest. Would this look like the hesitation of passion? Would he believe that she was flustered due to his kindness? Would he know that she was terrified of him knowing her name, of knowing her?
“You may call me Torielle,” she said quietly, the lyrics strangled as she desperately fought the desire to keep her name her own. There was no turning back now. He would know whom to call if he saw her across a crowded room. Would know who to ask after if he felt the need to find her somewhere new. Who to beg the gods for guidance in dealing with. Whose name to call in the throws of lonely passion when dream inevitably came and she was not at his side. A shiver coursed through her, chilling the mare to the bone.
She wanted to bolt, but with Veil now preoccupied, she wasn’t sure if she could just leave. The woman cast her gaze about, swallowing the rising panic once more, looking for any kind of out, desperate for some reason to break off this conversation. Her blue pools came to rest upon a large tent filled with merry makers, lit with bright lanterns and blessedly full of people. Salvation.
Her gaze turned back to Jarek, speaking rather quickly now. “Thank you, ah… for the gifts. But I had plans to meet with someone, so I really must be going, now.” Much akin to their first meeting, she did not give him much, if any, time to respond before turning on her heels and disappearing before his eyes. Her heart was pounding rapidly in her chest and she would not find sweet relief until she could no longer feel his eyes burning holes into her spine.
art by the-day-of-shadow character by scapeh table by sunny
