joy: book one: the blooming.

record XI: flashback: floresco liberation.

  "It was nice for you to bring him back home," said a young woman with long, white hair and sunkissed skin.
  "It was no trouble, really!" replied Ago with a big grin. "Have you and your family been well?"
  "Yes, they have, thank you for asking," responded the woman. "What about you and Nadia?"
  "We have been quite happy, as usual," stated Ago gleefully. "Every day has been a journey!"
  "Even after twenty years, it feels so new being married to her, huh?"

  Ago smiled softy a looked at his left hand. A golden ring in the shape of a flower wreath glimmered in the light of the winter moon.

  "Well...it's not that," spoke Ago. "Everyday I know her more than the last. In that, I fall in love with something new about her. Things won't always be so calm, but that isn't bad."

  The wind blew through his hair softly. A wind began to sing tenderly in the starry splattered night.

  "After all, hardship is the reason she and I met."

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  China glistened and reflected the dim fire in the fireplace. Tea was set out for both and Evangelique and Nadia.

  "Tell me, Eva, what do you know about the history of Alieliyo?" asked Nadia, holding a china cup filled to the brim with dark herbal tea.
  Eva sat silent. As she thought about the question, she realized she barely knew a thing about her country.
  The only piece of information was a significant piece of lore.

  "You are young," stated Nadia. "So you must only know of the legend of the Floresco Revolution?"
  "Yes, I have," replied Eva.

  "In the legend, it tells of a young man who set free the Hamadryad women destined to a twisted fate," began Nadia. "What they never mention in the legend was the fate of the Hamadryad women was..."

  The once warm atmosphere of the cottage began to chill Eva. She could feel bitter remorse arise from the shadows the fire couldn't reach.

  "I was much younger when the revolution happened," spoke Nadia. "I was not born to feel any act of love and left to be in isolation. My body was not to be touched, for if it was, I was impure. I lived with that mentality for so long that I forgot I was a being with a soul."

  The sound of flickering flames in the hearth gave a sensation of sunlight to the flagstone and wood walls.

  "However...one day, a young traveler came to Aleilyo," said Nadia. A tiny smile curled at the edge of her lips. "He was only sixteen then, and very timid. His existence shook me. He was gentle and overbearingly kind. He taught me of the love of Elohim, though I was quite against it for some time."

  Her voice became softer, creeping among the blues of the umbra like a thief in a dragon's den.

  "I had lived with the idea of being born as a sacred vessel for so long that I couldn't comprehend the reality of it all being false," she uttered. "But I couldn't push away the young man's words. I had to know more. Late one spring night, I had decided that I wanted to try to forget his words, despite my feelings. I went to the temple for the Hamadryad deity, hoping to find relief."

  Nadia's hands were now clasped together tightly, stiffly. By the sound of her breathing, Evangelique could tell what Nadia was about to say next was something quite distressing to her.

  "Instead, I found out the reality of my fate through the written documents of our people by accident. In that time, I found an ancient proclamation that called for the disposal of undesirable Hamadryad women in the form of sacrifice. Taking it as a commandment from the deity, they assigned certain women to become a vessel. And as a vessel, I was to be stabbed through the heart and then burned into ashes, so I could be made 'complete' in the eyes of the deity."