Guest Star:
💙 Aza-Vela 💙

 
   Stray skyward, twin audience of light and darkness, joy and woe. The vast vista of the night garnished handsomely by celestial sparkles, fuzzy ships, and gleaming continents is mesmerizing. The earth below with its highs and lows, plains and curves, dirt, lumber, green and waters compliments the cosmic ceiling. Yes, it is a fleeting speck of dirt in the whole of creation, outlived by the distant dazzling diamonds. However, the great marble does outlive its many denizens with even more fleeting lives.

   This moment seems so still yet plenty do move around or about, small and large, slow or swift. The stargazer with many tales to tell has nary a whisper to spill out of spite. Garbed in a tattered hood and cloak, ash tainted what lush tint it had. A cloth veils the husk-like hide from nose to chin. What tragedies might be etched on those ghastly wrinkles surrounding the enthralled emeralds?
   “Do you miss it?” asked a sultry disembodied voice of a woman.
   “Your home?”
   The bonfire more than a yard behind the stargazer crackles. Alone, he is not. Seconds without response creep by. The lady with a fairest ivory-peach skin and long silvery-golden hair and kept decent in a black gown flaunts not the faintest hint of impatience on her divine visage. A small creature of pearl scale is curled on her lap, dreaming sweetly.

   “Absolutely,” the man bridged the silence at last. His manly voice is a blend of optimism and the warm promise of a doting lover.
   “Perhaps it has been rebuilt, somewhere in these latest cosmic landscapes.”
Soft fingertips stride upon the back of the tiny sleeping legend. Its closed wings lightly twitch.
   “I would love to go there, someday.”

   The man takes a rest from admiring the evening sky. His companion, radiant and regal, deserves more than just his chatter while his back is turned. Her icy blue eyes glimmer from the dancing flame. They leave him rather spellbound. The maiden meets his gaze, not galled at the slightest by his silent stare. Their fellowship took flight nearly a decade ago. Even by the tiniest and weakest of embers, a longing that he believed to have been pillaged from him lifetimes ago is astir.

   The cloaked fellow approaches the woman, soon pausing this short stroll. Before her, he rests a knee upon the floor of soil and dried fallen leaves. A palm wrapped in old cloth with exposed little ghoulish limbs reaches for one of her hands, bare and without blemish. She reciprocates his grasp, smooth and tender, deprived of disgust, as she brings it into a fond union with his wraithlike skin.

   “If it is indeed the case, I promise to take you there...”
Pause to give sweet stress to a splendid spill.
   “...Aza-Vela.”

  Joy is portrayed upon her strawberry red lips. Lean forth. Their foreheads soon kiss. Eyes closed. Swaying flame crackles. The mythic lizard is whimpering pleasantly from undisturbed rest.

   Blessed be this eve. What despair and horrors linger to haunt hearts and corrupt spirits are forgotten beneath the starry skies. These two souls are caught in a moment of much-deserved peace and togetherness between dearest friends. Maybe, just maybe, a promising bloom of something more.