𝐃 𝐈 𝐕 𝐈 𝐍 𝐄, 𝐝.𝐦

𝐞𝐡𝐞𝐮 𝐟𝐮𝐠𝐚𝐜𝐞𝐬 𝐥𝐚𝐛𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐮𝐫 𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐢

[𝐀𝐥𝐚𝐬, 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐥𝐞𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐬 𝐬𝐥𝐢𝐩 𝐛𝐲]

There was a cottage sitting on a hill above an unknown small town somewhere in the world. It was small, fitted only for two people. A warm glow in the distance that had the returned townspeople chattering in curiosity. No one knew who they were, barely recognised them when they came into town. 

It had just been the boy at first, his white hair notable but it was the strange scars that littered his face that caught the attention of others. The townspeople thought perhaps he'd been all alone up there, but at night they could see two shadows in the windows. Sometimes they would stand on the porch in the summer evening, sway to music too far away for anyone to hear in the winter nights. At first, sometimes they'd wake the town below with a scream so loud it could only come from the darkest nightmares and the deepest griefs, then they'd see the two figures in the window again, one cradling the other so carefully. But eventually, those screams turned to shouts and after a while, it was just a barely thought about memory of the townspeople.

It took a few months but eventually, a young girl had shown up in town beside the boy. It was the other figure in the window, everyone quickly realised. She looked tired at first but never frail. It took several more months for her to speak another word to anyone but the boy beside her, the white-haired one that quickly turned into a man as she too aged into a young woman.

They never had children. Instead, they had a dog and horses, goats and chickens. They tended to their farm, brought it to life and watched it bloom every spring, and they kept to themselves.

They would often see this young woman sitting amongst her fields, sometimes weeping as she touched the earth, other times just sitting amongst the flowers.

Sometimes when the woman came to town, others would catch her touching dried herbs and flowers at a storefront or tracing her fingers against spare kindling. She would always look so mournful as she did as if she had once known each object personally.

At times they would see a young man visit, his hair dark and curly, his grin brighter than anything anyone could ignore. He hadn't shown up for months after they arrived, but once he had, he never truly left. He was like a permanent fixture in these people's lives that would come and go but always return. He visited and they would all have dinner and laugh loud enough for their neighbours to hear. 

The real change came a few years down the road when a beautiful woman with lovely caramel skin and dark curly hair arrived warily at their doorstep.

The woman hadn't been expecting this visitor and had doubled over when she had seen the guest. They stayed on the porch all night, talking and crying.

Her friend visited regularly after that.

The couple seemed happy there on their farm. They seemed at peace in their solitude and the life they built together.

It took a few years but soon people started to see peculiar things coming from their house; shadows and objects as the young man would stand before his wife as she watched with appreciation and warm love.

A fool would call it magic, but everyone else just chalked it up to a trick of the light or a play of illusions. 

[fin].