[P] Starry Night

[Maude]

She doesn’t notice the boy when he arrives, simply stretching forward the melody of the song in her head, and looping it whenever she found lyrics in need of extra polishing. To be honest and perfectly fair, though, Maude might not have noticed a full grown dragon thundering through the meadows, she was so involved in her art; a nearly silent, shy boy was easy to miss. When the woman arrives, however, the color of watery sunlight and as cheerful as the flowers which seemed to grow from her vast bounty of rippling hair, Maude does notice her presence, though most assuredly not right away. If Jude follows after the mare as he’s asked, it’s not until the woman starts to talk to the butter-cream and ginger maiden directly that the youth comes out of her writer’s reverie to notice the two of them at all. Immediately smiling, though also somewhat surprised (a tiny gasp escaping her lips), the girl tilts her head with a bemused smile lighting her lips, in odd contrast to the small treks of tears that had slipped from her eyes while she pondered how best to reword her words. Feeling pride swell in her heart that just her humming was so well received, the girl turns her pale green eyes towards the strange, friendly mare, and looks also at the shy stranger. It was hard to tell what gender they were; she’d wait to decide until they said something, if they ever did. "Oh, thank you," she answers, indeed breaking her song away (as she’d just been asked to not do, and quite oblivious to it, as well). She looks out at the last, ruddy rays of the sun extending up over the horizon, and sighs. "Some day, I’ll finish it. I’m afraid all but the melody are in awful shambles at this moment." Her promise is given to no one in particular; perhaps it just resonates alongside the one she’d made Otem, all those weeks ago. Regardless, she does truly intend to complete the piece, even if, sometimes, it was very painful to try and piece together. "I’m Maude," she tells the woman joining her in the grass, but also the rose-tinted stranger with the doe-like eyes, "are you guys new here, too? how to be brave how to love when I'm afraid

Image by Araxel@DA
@Jude @Florentine