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1.
Elias was looking out the window of the carriage, the wind blowing into his short black curls and sunlight hitting his softly tanned skin.
“Are we there yet?”
“Not yet, my love”
His mother ruffled his hair and smiled, before leaning back into her seat. He looked up as the scenery switched from arid to tropic. He fell asleep as he laid his head on the window.
--
“Elias.” His mother woke him up. “we’re arriving”
Elias looked again outside the window as they arrived in the small village that was Hazo, the carriage throbbing due to the tiles on the road.
Once arrived, his father urged him to grab his share of boxes and they unloaded the carriage. He turned his head towards the house in front of him, it was way bigger than their old one, and the street seemed more peaceful, admitted he’d miss the troublemakers of the city, he could probably find some here.
After moving all the smaller boxes in, Elias wished good night to his parents and went to make his bed before throwing himself onto it.
--
“Elias!! Open the door, someone’s knocking!” shouted his mother as he ran downstairs towards the door to open it.
That's when he saw her. The first thought that crossed his mind was that she was very pretty, with her long curly hazelnut hair and her brown skin that seemed to glow in the sunlight. What struck him the most was her deep brown eyes that lit up when she saw him, he had never seen such pretty and unique eyes before.
“ Hello? I'm Lylliane, your new neighbour” her accent made it the way she pronounced her ‘r’ immediately told him she wasn’t Eormenian
“Hi?” he realized he probably looked like a fool, staring at her like that. She smiled and he felt like his heart would melt, of course at six years old he couldn't understand what those weird feelings meant, but they were there.
She showed him the box in her hands.
“My parents made a little too much mofo ravina” the r rolled on her tongue “so we thought we could give you some, as a welcome gift” he carefully took the box from her hands and electricity sparked through their bodies as their fingers touched.
She started leaving and before she passed the portal of the garden, he blurted a bit too loud
“Elias! My name’s Elias” she turned around and smiled even wider, dimples forming on her cheeks
“Nice to meet you, Elias, I’m excited to be your friend” and as she walked away, he smiled to himself
“I’m excited to be your friend too”
2.
“Azalai e! You got flour all over my dress!” Lylliane cried out, stepping back from the counter.
The Atialan bursting out told him he was probably in trouble, but 11 years-old Elias was not scared of her anymore (he still was a little), and he chuckled lightly, watching her puff her cheeks and ball her fists. He did feel a little guilty, she really liked this dress.
“Serves you right, who wears a dress while cooking, without an apron”
“Ooo you-” she started hitting him with the wooden spoon while spitting more curses in her native tongue as he shielded himself, letting out full-throated laughter.
--
Elias was lying on Lylliane’s bed, propped up on his elbows, they had just finished baking the mokary and she was now grumpily searching through her closet for a new outfit.
“Can’t you just pick a regular outfit?” he asked, cocking his head to the side, a few strands of hair falling on his face.
He had decided to let them grow out ever since she told him long hair would definitely suit him.
“No, I must be dressed well all the time, especially for a dinner” she answered, still not looking at him. He scoffed at the way her way of speaking always sounded so formal to him, although her mom told him her Atialan was very familiar, so he guessed she was just more comfortable in her mother’s tongue.
“It’s just a dinner with my family, we do that every Sunday”
She looked back at him and gauged him from head to toe. “You must change too, or I’ll look out of place next to you”
“Are you insulting the way I dress?” he pretended to be offended. The way she grimaced told him enough and he rolled his eyes before going to the guest room, where the Caddel stored his clothes. He rummaged through the drawer, pulling out a shirt and a pair of black jeans, hoping it’d be enough.
He came back to her room, already changed, he heard noises in the bathroom and assumed she had found the perfect outfit. He noticed a book on Lylliane’s bedside table, a new one. Elias picked it up and flipped it to read the synopsis on the back. It was about balls, princes, princesses and, of course, romance. He rolled his eyes again, Elias didn’t understand what all the girls his age had with royalty and romance, he just hoped Lylliane wouldn’t get hit with the sickness, but apparently, he lost her too. The whole ordeal about the outfits and the dinner made more sense to him now. Lylliane liked to impersonate her books, he just hoped he wouldn’t have to dance.
The door of the bathroom finally opened, and the hazelnut-haired girl came out wearing a black dress, the skirt puffed lightly from her waist and the demarcation between the top and bottom part was emphasized by the red ribbon that hung above her hips, tying in a bow at the back. The collar was just a regular round one and the long sleeves were kind of puffy on the shoulders, dropping around her arms. The thing that struck out the most was her hair, she usually let them run wild on her head, but this time half was tied up in a ponytail, only two curly strands framing her face.
She looked like a real princess, like the one he used to see through the windows of the gold and blue carriages that would sometimes cross Healcer, the one with red hair and bored eyes.
“Stop staring at me like that, tell me if it looks bad or shut it,” she said, he recognized the stressed quiver in her tone.
Elias smiled lightly “You look good, I think you’ll still look out of place next to me”
She let out a quick relieved breath before heading towards a drawer in her dressing “Not on my watch” she pulled out a red tie, the same colour as her ribbon, and walked towards him.
She was really close. He felt himself heat up a little and blamed it on her constant radiating heat.
He leaned back as she wrapped it around his neck. “I used to do it all the time for my dad until they invented the ones you clip directly onto the shirt,” she said as she tied it, pulling out the collar before tightening it up, her fingers sending an electric wave against his skin.
Once done, Lylliane stepped back and pat him lightly before looking him straight in the eyes.
“Perfect”
That night, both their parents took way too many pictures of them, and each of them got to keep one. They also took two pictures with the two families, which both got to keep in their house.
Elias blushed at how his mom kept repeating how handsome he was, but the thing that got him blushing the hardest was when his dad leaned towards him and quietly said, looking at Lylliane
“She is very pretty, don’t you think?”
3.
Elias was sitting on his porch, sunbathing as he sharpened his dad’s latest sword with a special rock. It was the summer of his thirteenth year, and Lylliane had gone for her yearly vacation in Atiala, so he was bored out of his mind, of course, he had friends in the village, but they weren’t her.
He pushed back his hair for the tenth time in the last fifteen minutes, they had grown quite a bit, now reaching around half of his ears, and waving slightly towards the end.
His head shot up as he heard the noise of hoovers hitting the concrete road, and he immediately recognised the Caddel carriage. The carriage stopped in front of the house next to his, the door burst open, the girl ran and jumped above the fence and he barely had time to put down his tools when a mass tackled him to the ground.
“Ouch, am I dreaming, or have you got heavier?”
“You little shit-” she started playfully punching him
“ Oi chill !” he dodged a few hits “damn I missed you too okay, stop hitting me”
She laughed and got up to sit beside him, dropping her bag at her feet. Elias waved to Mrs Caddel and Lylliane’s little sister, Judith, as they moved their luggage into their house.
“I brought you something,” said the girl as she looked through her bag.
She pulled out two rectangles, which looked like cakes wrapped in… banana leaves!
“Are those mofo ravina?” Elias asked, his eyes already sparkling with envy
“Yes!” she smiled and handed him one of the cakes before unwrapping her own.
As Elias started eating his cake, he thought back to that fateful day, 6 years ago, when she had brought him the exact same sweet on the exact same porch, and he could vividly remember feeling strongly attached to her, even back then. He looked at her face glowing in the light of the dawning sun and acknowledged the slight pressure of her shoulder against his, realizing she was pressed against him. He didn’t move and just went back to looking at the sunset, not noticing how his heart had slowed down to a calmer pace since her arrival.
4.
Around the end of her thirteenth year, Lylliane discovered a passion for stargazing, and eventually, she found the perfect spot for it. And that’s why Elias was now holding a picnic basket, blindly following the curlyhead through the forest near Hazo, in the middle of the night.
She had told him the place was perfect and talked him into sneaking out during their sleepover for a midnight picnic, he suspected her latest reading for the last idea.
“Are you sure we’re not just... lost?” asked the boy.
“Elias, I’m a literal nymph, I know my way around a forest, even at night”
“Half-Nymph” grumbled Elias, trying to calm the panic rising in his chest.
They walked for about fifteen more minutes before the girl exclaimed “There it is!”
And she was right, the spot was downright perfect. It was a little glade in the woods where myriads of wildflowers and mushrooms too grew, there was just the right opening in the trees above them for the two moons to shine on the flowers in the centre, and from the said centre they could have the perfect view of the starry blue sky.
Lylliane walked towards the light, her toes dipping in the dirt, trying to not step on any flowers. She had her shoes in one hand, she never wears her shoes in the forest, nymph principle.
He slowly took off his, scared to ruin the perfect flora he was witnessing, and followed her towards the light.
She slowly spread their blanket on the ground before she sat on it, and Elias did the exact same, putting the basket in front of them. They started pulling out drinks such as homemade juices and water, and snacks such as rice cakes, bread, jam, hazelnut paste and of course, mofo ravina. Lylliane fished for those two right away, handing Elias his. She unwrapped her cake and her face lit up at the first bite, she looked up to the sky, eyes full of stars as she watched, mesmerized, the two moons above her.
Elias’s gaze eventually dropped back to Lylliane’s face, illuminated by the moonlight, the blue hues turning violet against her skin colour, and he thought about how she looked like a deity there and how he’d do that every night, just to see the content smile on her face.
Elias was always convinced Lylliane was the sunshine of his life, always glowing and bringing warmth and joy. Turns out she was more the moonlight that guided him out of the darkest places.
+1.
Lylliane has been trying to bring up the subject with him for weeks now. But as she looks at the dark-haired boy, she’s sure he’ll say no.
"What is it?” he asks “You haven’t touched your food yet.”
She snaps back to reality, realizing she’s been staring into the distance for a while now.
“I’m... I’m sorry what were you saying?”
He laughed “Nothing important, what’s on your mind.”
Here she goes.
“Well... I’ve been wondering if.. you’d like to go climbing with me” she asked, hesitant
“Climbing?”
“Yeah”
“That’s new”
“No.. not really”
Elias raises a brow, she guesses it must be hard for him to believe she’s had a hobby of climbing without him knowing, he knows her inside and out, by heart.
“You know, it’s very common, in Atiala, I’d usually never do it outside of the month I’d spend there” she started scratching the table with her nails, out of stress “But, there’s the Perfect Day coming up, and the sun and the moons will be perfectly aligned for half an hour, I’d love to be on top of the highest tree to see it” she bit her lips “with you.”
They had gone stargazing a thousand times together, it was no news for them, so why was she so stressed about this? Maybe because it is something he’s never done before and she’s scared he’ll think it’s just weird nymph shit, like everyone does, admitted Elias never showed hints of him thinking that.
“Yes, but Lylliane, I can’t climb” Elias answered, lightly.
“I’ll teach you” she perks up, excited at the prospect of him accepting.
“Hmmm…” he thought about it for half a second before going “okay.”
“Really?” her eyes lit up.
“Yes, if you really want to, just promise me I won’t die falling off”
She laughed, relieved “No you won’t, I’ll make sure of that.”
--
Elias was awfully bad at climbing. She realized that watching him struggle to reach the top branch of a small apple tree.
“Even Judith can do that, and she’s eight!” she yelled out.
“Fuck you!”
Lylliane was a little content with seeing him struggle for the first time in a while, Elias always succeeded at everything she did, sometimes even more than her, a few times she even wondered if he was real.
She sighed and walked towards the apple tree and grabbed the first branch before climbing it like it was child’s play. Once at the top she reached out a hand towards the boy and pulled him on top.
“I don’t know how you did that so smoothly,” Elias said, breathlessly.
“Practice makes perfect, all of it is in your core strength,” she said, poking at his belly before laughing as he grimaced in return.
“I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.”
--
The fateful day was here, and Elias was kind of ready. Usually, Lylliane would climb the first tree in the forest and jump from one to the other to the highest one, but he was definitely not in shape for that.
So here they were, walking barefoot towards the highest tree in the forest. She looked at Elias quickly, who finally stopped looking so out of place in the woods. She could still remember the first time she’d dragged him this deep, alone, he looked like a lost kitten, blind and wobbling. Now Elias was walking barefoot, light on his feet to make as little noise as possible, looking around him, admiring.
They walked in a comfortable silence for a while before stopping in front of the trunk of the highest tree. It was simply massive and even Lylliane had never attempted to climb it from the bottom.
“Lylli, I’m a bit scared now” his voice quivered a little.
“Don’t be, give me your bag, and I’ll go first” she extended a hand towards him, and threw the bag over her shoulder before putting her feet in a hole in the trunk.
The girl pressed her nails into the wood, digging for a better grip; one of the advantages of being a nymph is that certain parts of your body, such as your nails, were stronger for these kinds of activities. She then jumped and grabbed the first branch and sat on it.
“I definitely can’t do that” Elias looked up at her.
“Yes, you can, come on.”
So, he did the exact same thing as her and grabbed the branch with his two hands before slowly pulling himself over it.
They repeated the process through the whole tree, Lylliane first, Elias after, so she could help him if needed. When they reached the top, the two sat on the biggest branch, Elias closer to the trunk just in case.
“See? I knew you could do it.”
“My body hurts in parts I didn’t even know existed” Elias groaned.
“This is revenge for the time you taught me how to fight.”
“I knew you had ulterior motives!” he accused and the two burst into laughter.
She was pressed against him, Lylliane found herself doing that a lot lately, but she blamed it on the lack of sturdy places to sit, he was in the most secure spot, and she needed to be close to that, that’s all.
The sky was a mix of blue and violet, a mix you could only see so clearly on the Perfect Day, a day where there was no full night or no full day, it was a mix of both for 24 hours, and for 30 minutes, the two moons and the sun were perfectly aligned. This only happened once every 15 years, the last time was the year of their birth. In cultures all over the land, this day was a day of celebrations. Some even thought that if you declared your love on that day, it’d be blessed by the sky and would last at least the next ten years. ‘How romantic’ thought Lylliane when she first heard of that.
“Hey, I got you something,” Elias said, so quietly she could only hear him because of how close they were.
She turned her head and looked at him, he handed her a small black box.
“Happy birthday” whispered the boy.
“But you got me a gift already?” Lylliane said, holding the box, speechless.
“Yeah, but this one wasn’t ready, so I couldn’t give it to you on the right day” he paused, looking stressed “open it.”
Lylliane slowly opened the box, the lid sliding off perfectly. Inside was a gold necklace, with a sun as a pendant, there was a hole in the sun shaped like a moon croissant, it was about the size of her hand, and around it was a ring holding it in place.
“My dad made two of those” Elias pulled a silver necklace with a moon croissant pendant “they clip together,” he said as he put the moon in the hole in the pendant of her necklace, making a clicking sound, “I thought the sun fitted you most.”
Lylliane smiled fondly “Elias this is beautiful” she put the necklace around her neck, the chain long enough that she didn’t need to open it “but the sun fits you the most”
“We could always switch,” Elias said quickly.
“No” she laughed “I’ll keep it, that way I’ll think of you every time.”
Blush spread over the boy’s cheeks, and she thanked the Elders for her dark skin because she was definitely blushing too. This was the best gift she’d ever received, and she could cry right there, but she wouldn’t, it’d be too sappy.
Instead, the curlyhead resorted to banter, in a poor attempt to shield her heart from the emotions rising in it.
“So, you do love me,” she said mockingly.
“I will push you, don’t tempt me” he answered, the air feeling already lighter between them.
“You won’t, you need me to go back down” she laughed.
-
“Look, it’s happening” Elias pointed at the sky.
She raised her head, the sun and the moons were slowly aligning before her eyes, the sky turning a perfect shade of deep purple. It was mesmerizing, it looked as if each star grew brighter with it, and Lylliane felt like she was about to cry for the second time.
Under the emotion, she wrapped her arm around Elias’s and put her head on his shoulder. Her head was spinning, and her heart was drumming in her chest, but she couldn’t help the violent need to be closer to him. At this age, Lylliane would describe it as her soul wanting to hug his and never letting go, and she’d understand, much later, that this is what they call love.