Since Esmera was abandoned on a stranger's doorstep as a baby, the only person who has looked out for her is herself.
Until a lark starts visiting her, leaving behind exotic flowers and iridescent pebbles that the internet doesn't recognise.
Esmera...
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The guards had escorted Anjarah out of the room as their king had commanded them. Lundas and Jammas had dozed off at the foot of the bed and on the curtain rail respectively. Esmera and Tauram were as good as alone, and for the first time in that situation, she wasn't sure what to say to him.
There had to be something. The silence of slow-falling sleep demanded it, as did the pressure inside Esmera that told her there was something yet unsaid.
"I'm proud of you." Esmera squeezed Tauram's beautiful hand. She cuddled against him while the purple-robed continental pillow at her back kept her exhausted body upright.
Tauram seemed to know exactly what Esmera was referring to without her needing to elaborate. He had done something he didn't usually do. He had heard out a traitor and treated her gently.
Tauram took a moment to consider before speaking. "Forgiveness is difficult, as you said, but I want to try." He took a deep breath, closing his eyes as his mouth trembled. "I think it's what Belaren would've wanted."
"I think so too." Esmera folded him into her arms, and he rested his head on her shoulder.
They fell back into the quiet melody of expanding chests and beating hearts, of life, one only for Esmera's ears. She was grateful and honoured by such a gift. The night deepened and darkened around them, and there didn't seem to be anything more to say.
Esmera slid under the covers, holding Tauram close to her. She had expected that her fatigue would pull her straight into the land of dreams, but it took a little longer for her mind to quieten enough for her to drift towards sleep. Just then, a familiar green glow filled the room like sunlight as it rose, the glow of the earth and its plants and the goddess who presided over them.
"By the scales of Ganamari's hundred-tailed lizard," Tauram murmured as he sat up beside Esmera, blinking in the sudden brightness that greeted his eyes.
"He has a hundred and one tails now." Jilhari smiled where she hovered on her flower stool in front of the door to the bedroom. "He grew an extra one for the extra year he and my daughter aged together, and she was as thrilled as always."
Esmera blinked at the goddess. She can't have decided to pay them a visit solely to talk about her daughter's lizard, but that was all she said, merely gazing at Esmera and Tauram with a faint, divine smile on her perfect face.
So much about Esmera and Tauram and their lives had changed since their last meeting. They had fallen apart more than once and out themselves back together. Esmera could sense the cracks between the pieces of them, but maybe that was because she knew they were there. Maybe they both looked perfectly intact to Jilhari. Maybe that was why she didn't comment on it.
All the same, it seemed unfair that they had been damaged and changed by the mission Jilhari had given them while she was untouched by it. It was the privilege of divinity, Esmera guessed.
