Summertime Wine

Arasine watched as the Quirlicorn left, having only stayed long enough to drop off a message. Confess to your crush?

Thalor was snickering, and Arasine gave him a bit of a glare.

“Oh come on, I’ve heard you whining about how pretty Orabelle is constantly,” Thalor teased. “It sounds like it’s the perfect time!”

Arasine sighed. His Guardian was (kind of) right.

“What… would I even say?” Arasine mused, looking at the sky. The sky was a pretty shade of blue, so close to the shade held within her rainbow hair…

Okay, Thalor was right. He had it bad.

“Here is the plan,” Thalor said with a smirk.

Arasine shuffled his hooves nervously. He had asked Orabelle to meet him here, in this small meadow on the edge of the woods. The trees seemed to curve inward to create a small, hidden spot. A small break in the trees looked down over rolling fields, the sun approaching the horizon on the far end. Small fairy lights hung from the trees around him, and a picnic was laid out. But was she going to arrive?

He couldn’t help but be nervous, at least until he saw the shimmer of her sparkling coat, and the twist of her tree-branch antlers. It looked like she had taken extra time to brush out her mane and tail, and she positively glowed in the light of the setting sun. She stumbled a step as she spotted him, and Arasine sucked in a breath. Was she… as nervous as he was?

As Orabelle got closer, Arasine smelled the sweet scent of flowers he could not name, and noticed some had been woven into a crown to grace her head. She seemed mystical, from another world, something beyond his understanding.

“Hi,” Arasine said, as she got closer, then cleared his throat. “Er, I mean, Hello. How are you doing this evening?”

Orabelle grinned a bit, before looking down shyly. “Good, and you?”

“Great! I uhm, prepared a picnic,” Arasine said, gesturing behind him. “Shall we?”

The conversation was a bit awkward, but slowly they relaxed. It was different from any other time they had spent together, the air seeming charged with the possibility of more. It was as if they were meeting each other for the first time again, finding out new things as they went along.

The sun began to set, and they stood, side by side, watching it go. The colors sent the glitter on Orabelle’s coat into a kaleidoscope of hues, and Arasine felt his breath catch. But no, it wasn’t quite the right time.

“Would you like some wine?” Orabelle asked, as she pulled out a bottle of fae wine. Arasine raised an eyebrow.

“Wine from the fae, should I be concerned?” He grinned.

“From my home… It’s customary to give a gift to show a token of your affection,” Orabelle admitted. “Fae wine was the easiest thing to get my hooves on.”

“I really want to know the story of how that was the easiest thing,” Arasine said, as he accepted the bottle. “I am sorry I have no gift for you…”

Orabelle smiled, and it lit up his world. “But you have. The entire night is a gift,” she replied. So together they drank, with wonder in their eyes.

It tasted like summer and light, tingling over his tongue and through his body. They drank, and together they danced as spirits of fire and water, of earth and sky filled the clearing, dancing under the moonlit sky.

And when dawn found them, tired from the night of revelry, they left together into the sunrise, each glowing with newfound love.