(( There goes that cuideag again, trying to keep an active story thread! HA. We'll see. ))
It was summer she remembered the best of all, the days where the moons and the stars shined brightest and the evenings were warm and crisp and alive with magic. Such would be her nature, her mother often remarked, for she herself was born among the warmest of the summer days. Her heart would align with the very season that saw her way into life and treasure every blazing phoenix sunset as if it would be her last.
She held her mother's hand as they walked the path up into the hills beyond the city walls. They walked in pairs when they could, mothers and daughters together with their hair and shoulders wrapped in earth-dyed shawls. Yalms ahead she saw Edelin Graye twirling her copper braids like fox-tails, and yalms behind Tillie Highhearth's mother chastised her daughter for stopping so often to pick at the budding wild flowers. The path was long but none so much as whispered a complaint, and they all moved as ghosts over the rocks and slopes.
They left their home without a word to father nor her brothers. "It is not their concern," Mother had assured her with her smile. "It is a precious night, my duckling. Let us not worry of men." Yet as they slipped through the back door and out through the garden, Delial Blackstone stole a back to their house and though for a moment that she had caught sight of her father watching through the window. Garren was by nature man of stone, of chiselled shapes and unkindly features. He had always seemed so cold from a distance, where his family's love was just a glance thrown as an afterthought over one's shoulder.
Her mother walked on with knowing steps. Delial could only follow.
They converged at the foot of a peak that crowned the ridge, stone both bare and cloaked with grass rising sharply from the gentler hills to greet the darkening sky. It was to be a fortuitous night and the whispers of fair weather seemed to have been on point. It was Travine's grandmother who could read the clouds better than any of her greying sisters so when she said that the stars would be heavy and full, it was taken as science. The air crackled with excitement and chatter that was lively even if it was hushed. Dozens of bright-eyed women milled and bonded with one another with smiles and laughter while their daughters clutched their skirts and exchanged shy smiles. They were not strangers to one another by any means but the peak was unfamiliar and the secrecy had struck more than a few of them as unusual.
Delial was no different. She was not yet the iron violet that her mother was and she was not sure why she had been pulled along the short hike up the mountain when night was falling. Were it the city she would not have minded: Ala Mhigo was her home and she knew the streets, their sights and smells, well as any other. It was quiet where they circled and huddled with nary a cricket's chirp to interrupt the gathering.
Then, it changed.
Everyone felt it rolling through their bodies like the growl of distant thunder but only the mothers knew what it meant. At once their voices fell silent as did those of their puzzled and alarmed daughters. Their eyes drew towards the crown of earth. Detaching itself from the sparse trees that sprouted from the peak was a thin and sinuous shape and only when it came closer, stepping with impossible grace down to the clearing below, did Delial recognize it as a woman.
The Witch had come.
It was summer she remembered the best of all, the days where the moons and the stars shined brightest and the evenings were warm and crisp and alive with magic. Such would be her nature, her mother often remarked, for she herself was born among the warmest of the summer days. Her heart would align with the very season that saw her way into life and treasure every blazing phoenix sunset as if it would be her last.
She held her mother's hand as they walked the path up into the hills beyond the city walls. They walked in pairs when they could, mothers and daughters together with their hair and shoulders wrapped in earth-dyed shawls. Yalms ahead she saw Edelin Graye twirling her copper braids like fox-tails, and yalms behind Tillie Highhearth's mother chastised her daughter for stopping so often to pick at the budding wild flowers. The path was long but none so much as whispered a complaint, and they all moved as ghosts over the rocks and slopes.
They left their home without a word to father nor her brothers. "It is not their concern," Mother had assured her with her smile. "It is a precious night, my duckling. Let us not worry of men." Yet as they slipped through the back door and out through the garden, Delial Blackstone stole a back to their house and though for a moment that she had caught sight of her father watching through the window. Garren was by nature man of stone, of chiselled shapes and unkindly features. He had always seemed so cold from a distance, where his family's love was just a glance thrown as an afterthought over one's shoulder.
Her mother walked on with knowing steps. Delial could only follow.
They converged at the foot of a peak that crowned the ridge, stone both bare and cloaked with grass rising sharply from the gentler hills to greet the darkening sky. It was to be a fortuitous night and the whispers of fair weather seemed to have been on point. It was Travine's grandmother who could read the clouds better than any of her greying sisters so when she said that the stars would be heavy and full, it was taken as science. The air crackled with excitement and chatter that was lively even if it was hushed. Dozens of bright-eyed women milled and bonded with one another with smiles and laughter while their daughters clutched their skirts and exchanged shy smiles. They were not strangers to one another by any means but the peak was unfamiliar and the secrecy had struck more than a few of them as unusual.
Delial was no different. She was not yet the iron violet that her mother was and she was not sure why she had been pulled along the short hike up the mountain when night was falling. Were it the city she would not have minded: Ala Mhigo was her home and she knew the streets, their sights and smells, well as any other. It was quiet where they circled and huddled with nary a cricket's chirp to interrupt the gathering.
Then, it changed.
Everyone felt it rolling through their bodies like the growl of distant thunder but only the mothers knew what it meant. At once their voices fell silent as did those of their puzzled and alarmed daughters. Their eyes drew towards the crown of earth. Detaching itself from the sparse trees that sprouted from the peak was a thin and sinuous shape and only when it came closer, stepping with impossible grace down to the clearing below, did Delial recognize it as a woman.
The Witch had come.
![[Image: d_footer.png]](http://cuideag.com/ffxiv/resources/d_footer.png)
