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Oh, how Juliet could question the most obvious things. Titania's head rolled to look at her sister, but she wasn't irritated at her. She simply smiled, happy for an invitation to talk about Zalen more. “I think I got grounded for meeting him because mom and dad don't want us to meet other people. I'm sure of it. You know how they are, how they don't want us to do anything? They're so over protective. Dad, well I think he just reacts to Mom sometimes, but Mom, she would hardly even let us go around Cercatori on our own until like a month ago. You know, you wandered off more than I did.” It was true, in their youth Titania was more of a home body than Juliet. It wasn't that Juliet tried to disobey, but the girl was always wandering off to either solve the mysteries of life that came easier to everyone else, or find a new batch of flowers to catalog in her mind.
She looked back to the sky. “But they especially don't want us to meet any boys. And especially not boys that aren't part of our pack. If they're not part of Cercatori then they don't like 'em, at all.” She didn't really have a basis of thinking this, other than the basic pack mentality she had observed. Of course to a pack wolf a lone wolf would be seen as lower. Yet the more she dwelled on it, the more she thought her parents were particularly prejudice – what with her father always setting up traps to catch loners at the borders, and her mother always warning them of strangers. She knew something had happened to her family when they were very young, but still she couldn't comprehend why her parents were like that other than an ugly hatred.
“His name is Zalen,” she said the name a little breathily. “Zalen Damaichu.” She knew his full name because Ruby had said it; the ancestral spirit that had visited him.
“He makes me feel... really good inside. Like all the fairies on Earth are dancing at once. Like... like...” she searched for a way to put it in terms that her sister could understand. “Like all the flowers in the world were blooming all around me!” She looked at her sister, waiting for her to understand and hoping to see the light in her face. Her own amber eyes were filled with love and longing.
“Its like it hurts to be away from him. And the most amazing things happen when he's around! We ran like real wolves, and we played, and we sang! You should have heard us! And, oh Juliet, the fairies love him. And I found out there's more, there really is more. While we were there-” she wasn't sure that she should tell her sister, but even if she should stop now it was too late. The words poured from her faster than she could think them. “A spirit showed herself to us! I think she was blessing us. Zalen said he was one of his ancestors.”
Image courtesy of mourner@Flickr; table by the Mentors!
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