The night was lit by a half moon that hung low in the midnight velvet sky. Stars were scattered here and there upon the cloudless canvas, some bright, some dim, some large and others tiny. Kaylanna Ravenmoon sighed softly as she stood on the balcony watching the sky. The sound spoke worlds of her emotions. It was neither sad nor forlorn, but more heart worn than she would have cared to admit. She seemed as a part of the night itself, pale like the moon that shone down upon her, with dark curling hair and stars shining in her violet eyes. Tears shimmered there though they had yet to fall. She refused to cry, even though she had heard often enough that tears cleansed the soul. Finding one small star in the sky that seemed as lonely as she, she took a moment to make a silent wish.
"Wishing and wanting doesn't always get you what you want, Kaylanna," came a familiar voice from behind her that startled her from her reverie. She turned to find her brother leaning against the doorjamb looking nonchalant with his golden hair tasseled and a wolfish grin on his face.
"Darian, you are likely to scare me to death one day!" she exclaimed mockingly before leaning back against the railing of the balcony. "Why are you in my chambers at this late hour?"
Darian shrugged his shoulders. "I can feel your emotions all to well, my sister. I have not learned to control my empathy so well as to ignore your feelings, though often I wish I could."
Kaylanna lowered her head, her hair falling in a rivulet of ringlets around her face, hiding her features from view for a moment as she struggled to compose herself. Raising her violet gaze to meet her brother's green one, she spoke. "He has returned, Darian. He has returned and he still treats me as a brother would a sister. I wish that it were that he loved me as I have come to love him, but I doubt that shall ever be." Her lower lip trembled slightly with her words and she turned her back to Darian, trying to hide the tears that threatened to come forth.
"I doubt that is true, Kaylanna," Darian said, putting his arms on his sister's shoulders in comfort. "He is just unsure of how to approach you. After all, we did all grow up together and he did just come home from the war."
"Aye...but I wish that he would show some sign of his feelings...give me some hint of what he thinks. He has learned to control his emotions even better than you have, Darian."
"Mother is a good teacher," he stated matter of factly, which didn't seem to improve Kaylanna's mood one bit.
"Sometimes I wish she weren't. Before he went away, at least I could read him, at least I could most of the time. I thought..." Her words trailed off into nothingness and she let out another heavy sigh then shook her head. "It does not matter. What is, is."
"I will speak to him, Kaylanna. Perhaps he does not know how he is hurting you."
"Don't you dare, Darian. Twould put a rift between he and I if he does not return my affections."
Darian let out a sigh of his own before saying in a soft tone, "Very well...mayhaps you should try to get some sleep, then. It is well past midnight and mother is holding circle early tomorrow for Bethany's new child."
"I am too wound up to sleep...I think I will go for a walk in the garden. Perhaps it will clear my thoughts." With that, she strolled passed her brother into her room and picked up a white silk robe that was hung over the back of an armchair. She slipped into it as she walked out the door, wishing her brother a pleasant goodnight.
Her brother smiled to himself, shook his head then strode purposely to the door as well. If he had anything to do with it, his sister and his best friend would be handfasted by the next full moon.
Tyreon had been walking the parapet walls for nearly an hour. Too much was weighing heavily on his mind and as he paced the familiar wood and stone flooring memories of his boyhood flooded his thoughts. Happier times had been spent with his foster family, those who had taken him in when he had not a cent to his name. Now he was the lord of his own lands, his ancestral holdings having been returned to him while in service of King Larath. Before, he would never have thought to be capable of taking a lady of standing. Who would have wanted him, a lord in name only, other than the higher class merchant women of the surrounding towns and villages? Now he was prosperous and wanted by many of the ladies at court, but there was only one that he had his heart set on and she thought of him as a sister does a brother. He sighed heavily, his fingers combing through his dark brown shoulder length hair. For the first time in his life, he wasn't sure how to proceed.
The creak of a door opening at one of the towers brought him abruptly out of his thoughts and he quickly smiled at his dearest friend, Darian, as if to hide his rampaging emotions. "What brings you up here at this late hour?"
"I was about to ask you the same question," came Darian's amused answer. He closed the door behind him and went to stand next to Tyreon, overlooking the castle courtyard.
"I just needed to think." An unknown emotion crossed his features before his face turned, once again, into a steely mask.
"If you ask me, there is too much thinking going on in this castle this night."
"What makes you say that?"
"Kaylanna has been pining away in her chambers these last few nights and nothing seems to comfort her."
With concern clear in his voice, Tyreon asked, "Is milady alright? Has she been struck by some malady? Has someone done her some injustice?"
