[P] Starry Night

[Maude]

The sun shone in its last light, tilting down over the horizon and covering the world in violet, scarlet, and rose, saturated with deep, soul-warming gold.  Lying on her side, letting the last of the heat drench her body as she lightly dozed, and the young herbalist was, for the first time since she’d left Helovia, at peace.   The sound of the last insects making their way home droned over her through the hazy air, and occasionally, her exposed ear flickers, dispelling one of the little critters which alighted upon it, or her wild mass of rippling, white tail flutters up to drowsily swish along her butter-cream flanks.  The promise of the arriving evening was not filled with a trepidation of what awaited her in the deepening darkness, as it had been in the Rift; instead, she looked forward to rising from her nap, to look upon the myriad array of stars, that were so many that the whole sky seemed to be made of a thin black gauze, through which the very light of creation sought to break through at last.   Unsure of the moon phases, but sure enough from the night prior that it would be about half full, she’s not even worried about the dark, and quite comforted by the presence of the half orb, already making her gauzy appearance in the dusk-light.  Though the girl knows, as she opens her eyes, and looks up at the heavens, that the light shining there is not her Goddess, as she has come to view the moon, part of her still feels as if she is there, regardless.  Somehow, through time and space, they all still were.   Wishing she could go back in time and tell Otem this, while they had wept over their mothers and their lost home, the girl recollects, also, her promise to the girl.  Suddenly roused, Maude rolls over onto her belly, her knees raised before her, and gently sets her chin atop them, to look out across the horizon.   Humming the melody aloud, she begins to rework the stanzas in her head, and watches the night slowly cloak the world of Novus.   how to be brave how to love when I'm afraid

Image by Araxel@DA
@Jude @Florentine