𝐆𝐎𝐍𝐄 ☽ a court of thorns and roses

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐅𝐎𝐔𝐑

☽༓☾

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐟𝐨𝐮𝐫 | the city that never sleeps

☽༓☾

Velaris was as how they had described it. A city made of starlight hidden between the mountains of the Night Court. The city radiated joy, safety and a kind of warmth that Zara had not felt in a long time. The kind of warmth you'd feel from a child discovering that Santa ate the cookies they had left for him. The warm embrace of a mother after a nightmare and the feeling of coming home after having been gone for a long time. Velaris was all that and more.

Morrigan and Zara were discovering the city at night. Zara swore she had never seen this many stars before, only in pictures. The moon was bright enough to light up the snowy peaks of the mountains that surrounded the city. Tiny, bright lights lit up the streets of Velaris. Fae lights, Morrigan had called them.

The streets resembled those old French streets you would see in the movies and for just a moment, Zara had thought that she walked onto the set of Beauty and the Beast. Unfortunately for her, that wasn't the reality she was living. No matter how beautiful she thought Velaris was, it wasn't home. That cheesy quote that is printed on those cheap decorations, something like home is where the heart is, it was true. And for Zara, that was with her mom, in Massachusetts.

"What's your home like?" Morrigan asked, breaking the comfortable silence that they had. Genuine interest sounded in her voice. Zara considered her answer.

"I don't know, it's hard to explain to someone who doesn't know what a skyscraper is." Zara she joked, though there was truth in what she told her. How do you explain a skyscraper to someone who has never heard of it? How do you explain that the streets of the city she grew up in wasn't made out of cobblestone but concrete, that most buildings weren't built with bricks but with metal and glass?

"I guess it's bigger, more people, more concrete, and less brick. The air is less clean, people live and work in buildings that have a hundred floors. My mom and I lived in a neighborhood outside of the city, we call that the suburban, a little safer, but definitely not better." Zara explained.

"A hundred floors?" Morrigan asked "What does that even look like?"

Zara chuckled. "They're very high, I suppose they reach the height of the House of the Wind, some even go above the clouds, hence the name skyscraper."

"It's funny, I always wished to be somewhere else. Back then, I only thought about what I wanted, never about what I had. I'd do anything to go home, now." Zara continued. She wasn't sure why she felt like telling Morrigan that. Back home, Zara had been walking around with those thoughts. She had wished to be somewhere else, to find an escape from the live she was living. She had found that, but not in the way she had wanted. Be careful what you wish for, that was what they always said.