She felt guilty being there, in his home, a guest of his and his engaged, but she had to see him again, so when the invitation came she could not resist packing and coming right away. They were having a festival to celebrate the land being saved. So here she was, walking alone, feeling guilty. Arora looked up then, feeling that someone was watching her. In the window above stood Travis. She couldn’t read the look on his face but their eyes met and held. Just the eye contact made her shiver from head to toe. A blush colored her cheeks as she realizes she was just staring at him, she lifts up one gloved hand and waves with a smile. He returns the smile and waves back but this does not make her feel any better, his smile only made her body ache more. Turning away she walks deeper into the garden needing to be away from him yet wishing she was closer.
It was a terrible time, just a few months earlier; he had come to her little village seeking the emerald pendant of demon keeping. At the time her village had been all but burned to the ground by bandits. Only a few buildings stood. Arora had managed to move all the sacred objects deep into a cavern where they were safer and so the bandits had moved on after finding little of value. Arora had taken him into the forbidden cavern where the pendant was kept and both of them had nearly lost their lives there. Arora was knocked into a wall and on to a ledge that dropped into the abyss. Travis had helped her out and then he himself nearly fell off a rope bridge into a river of lava when the ropes broke, but that’s to Arora’s fast reflexes she managed to pull him to safety.
Once the pendant was secured Arora felt it was her duty to be sure that Travis fulfilled his quest. They rode many weeks, endured many sneak and head on attacks, and even escaped from a dungeon of a madman together. When Travis was hit by a poison tipped arrow it was Arora’s healing herbs and skill that kept him from death.
The final confrontation with the half demon had been terrifying. He had immense power and even Travis could barely take the spirit attacks the demon used on him, just as Travis felt his will slipping to almost nothing Arora had come up behind him and wrapped her arms around him and held the pendant with him. Their power combined was too much for the demon and he was soon trapped within the pendant.
Arora shudders and sits on a stone bench, a light rain had begun and it brought her back to the present. She liked Travis’s loyal fiancée Nera, she learned the king had actually paired them together before the threat to the kingdom and Travis had liked her a lot and agreed to marry her. She was the king’s niece and had a lot of money and power in the noble house. She felt jealous…
She was not poor but neither did she have a lot of money. Her father had left her his apothecary (herb) shop and it had made her a good living. She was quite shocked when Travis had ordered her several new gowns and had them sent to her along with an invitation to the festival. She was wearing one of the gowns now; it was a beautiful black silk with golden trim and a gold belt for her waist. She felt like a princess and it made her feel even guiltier that her feelings for him were so strong.
