It may be true that love potions caused euphoria, but sudden, happy epiphanies seemed to do the same thing.
She couldn't wait to tell him. She could feel the biggest, silliest smile stretching her face in a ridiculous way, but she didn't care who saw it. And her pace was quick as she walked through the Garden of Aevenwy, and her heart felt as light as air.
Callyndia imagined that this is what it felt like to be Alloria Rosa all the time. Bliss. Constant bliss.
She was sure that she was glowing, a radiant fairy who turned heads in a crowd of radiant fairies. The garden itself showed every possible deference to her as she walked past. The grasses hardly bent beneath her footsteps, and the hem of her magic skirt deftly avoided being snagged on foliage as it fluttered behind her. The breezes were tossing her hair just right, so it didn't get in her eyes.
Svenden would be so happy to see her like this, and his face would finally light up when she told him those words he'd been waiting to hear from her.
She figured he would be out at the archery range again — where else would he be in this garden full of fairy magic? But, when she arrived, she saw only a couple of dryads practicing with their bows.
"Callyndia, you look positively radiant today!" one of them said.
"Oh, thank you, Teela!" she said politely, though she was feeling too impatient for proper manners, "You look great too. Where's Svenden? Have you seen him?"
The two dryads looked at each other and shook their heads.
"Do you know where Leofric and Kithana are?"
"I saw them at the bluebells," the other dryad said, "You could look there."
"Thank you!" she said, turning to leave. But, she remembered her manners and looked back. "Oh, you look great too, Mei!" She blew them both a kiss and hurried away.
She could hear them giggling at her as she left, but she didn't really care.
Moments later, she arrived at the bluebell hill. Sure enough, Leofric and Kithana were there. Actually, a few other fairies were there too. There was a big, black scar on the ground in the midst of the bluebells, and Leofric was embracing Kithana, who was seemingly hiding her face in embarrassment.
Callyndia's face dropped momentarily. Well, it dropped as far as her elated mood would allow it. "What happened?" she asked.
"I burnt the flowers!" Kithana said sadly, "I thought your mother said the magic would protect the garden!"
"It's okay," a nearby dryad said, "You didn't mean it." The dryad reached out to lay a comforting hand on Kithana's shoulder, but stopped herself and pulled back awkwardly. "We'll just... we can fix it! And the magic should work better next time."
Another dryad — Clovis — knelt down to sprinkle a bit of magic over the burn scar, and new bluebells sprouted and began to grow from the ground. "The good thing about fire is that it helps the soil's fertility," she says, "So it's a lot easier to make new flowers grow now, thanks to you!"
They were trying so hard to make Kithana feel better, and Callyndia felt bad interrupting them. So, she waited impatiently, but put on her best sympathetic face as Kithana got all the attention.
Thankfully, Leofric seemed to pick up on a cue of some kind, and spoke to Callyndia. "Lady Sablesong, you seem anxious," he said, "Can we help you in some way?"
"Yes, I'm looking for Svenden," she said, "Do you know where he is?"
"Oh," he said, "I believe he mentioned wanting to step out of the garden for a few moments. He headed... I believe that's east? East." He pointed in a direction that was, indeed, east.
"Thank you," she said, "Are you okay here?"
"We're fine," Leofric said, "Kithana is still working to control her flames a little, but Aevenwy is in good hands, so we should be okay here."
"Okay," she said, "Sorry, Kithana." She hastily told everyone they looked great — even Leofric, who probably didn't know what to do with that information — blew some kisses, and hurried off before she could think about how silly she must have sounded to all of them.
She took the most direct path she could find to the eastern edge of Aevenwy, and arrived in just a few minutes. She began looking around anxiously, hoping to spot Svenden.
The edge of the garden was quite stark. It was early autumn outside, and the ground outside the garden was clothed in fallen leaves scattered about at the feet of barren trees, and a thin blanket of clouds was spread out over the pale sky. That chill in the air suddenly touched her cheeks, and she realized that the light gown she'd been wearing was all wrong for this part of the forest.
A wave of her hands, a swirl of fairy magic, and her gown shifted to a form more appropriate for autumn: sturdy cotton, drab green, with a warm shawl overlay. Cute but functional.
She folded her arms over her stomach and called out to the spirits in the woods to tell her if they'd seen Svenden. They were groggy and slow to respond, but there was a light whisper of confirmation from the north. So, she walked in that direction.
It wasn't long before she heard the thud of an arrow in a tree trunk, and she approached cautiously. "Svenden?" she called out gently, "Are you there?"
"I'm here," he confirmed.
She stepped around a clump of trees and saw him. He still had that aura of melancholy around him, and a reserved expression on his face. In the cloudy autumn air, his eyes seemed to glimmer just a little bit. She could tell that he was happy to see her.
Of course he was: she looked more radiant and beautiful now than she ever had before.
Callyndia suddenly felt out of breath, and her heart seemed to be thumping harder than was strictly necessary, but she took a moment's pause, determined not to just blurt out what she wanted to say. "I spoke to my mother," she said casually.
She felt silly.
He nodded as if that meant nothing to him, because it probably meant nothing to him. "I asked her..." she began, then hesitated. Maybe she should just get to the point.
She took a deep breath. "I was wrong," she said finally, "Apparently I'm more human than I thought."
His brow scrunched up a bit. "What does that mean?" he asked.
She was a little annoyed by that. Surely he was just playing dumb, and not actually that dumb, right? "I..." she said, hesitantly, "It turns out, I am in love with you."
His face seemed to freeze at that. She could feel a complex soup of emotions stirring around in his head, but there was an undercurrent of something else. Something inside him reached up and pushed it all back down, calming the soup again.
"I..." he started, "I don't know what to say." His voice was dry and monotone.
"It's true, Sven," she said, "I'm in love with you. We're in love with each other."
He swallowed hard. "Really?" he asked.
She nodded emphatically. "Yes," she said, "I... I should have known. Mother says I'm not like her. Nymphs don't fall in love, but I'm not just a nymph: I'm also human. I... I can fall in love. And I have. I'm in love with you, Sven."
He swallowed again, and his eye twitched. "I..." he began, but he sighed in frustration and looked away.
Callyndia felt her heart sink a little in confusion. "Sven, what's wrong?" she asked.
"I want to believe you, but—"
That wasn't how he was supposed to respond. He was doing it wrong. "Sven, it's real!" she said, "I'm being serious."
"I know," he said softly, "I know that..." He looked away again. "It's a lot. It's just... I just..." He tried for a moment to finish his sentence, but soon gave up.
He turned and walked away, tearing her heart out as he did.
Something about his demeanor told her not to follow him, so she just stood and watched in confusion, all the radiance she'd felt in herself dissipating almost instantly.
It was really cold out for autumn.
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I couldn't really let the drama end already, could I?
Thanks for reading The Land Set Aflame! Sorry I'm late this week.