[AW] The Court of Dreams

[Miette]

Miette The billow of smoke draws her forward - a moth to the flame. Curiosity burns her innocent heart and without the willpower to deny, eager limbs carry her ever forward, beyond the gasp of parental concern. No amount of reprimand can divert that vivid, exciting centre of all focus and as one giant wing slips around to soothe, she resists. At last they relinquish that bind and free her baited tread of all shackle. The swallow flits forward, swift and spry, with wings riding the curve of the wind rushing by. She arrives first, beneath a star-spangled sky, stepping tentatively upon the stone path which rises as though from nothing, beneath a shrug of grass. Fluttering, panting nostrils slip downwards but fall short, and knees crook to grant her careening, craving mind full access; scent lies thick upon the strange, stiff surface, like a winter’s worth of snow, and it is cold when she taps soft lips against it. The chill is a shock, more so than the taste, and she recoils like a startled butterfly into refuge arriving behind. Words, she finds, are tricky, stubborn and seldom follow the pattern of each thought, so the babe instead relies upon the language of expression. Imploring eyes ascend, searching the face of Papa first and then Mama; they beg for reassurance, for the steadiness of age and experience; for guidance. Ahead, illuminated dimly in the lure of dancing firelight, many had gathered together and from them, the jubilant, boisterous sound lifted to cancel the numbing caress of night.   @Nora