Post by Charlotte Durham on Mar 13, 2020 20:36:16 GMT
While she wasn't sure why the seed pods of the helabane flowers needed to be gathered at a specific time, Charlotte had never questioned it...her mother was the one who had taught her the specifics, and there was no cause to doubt it. Besides, she and her mother had made a tradition of going out to the Cerate Forest to gather the flowers, and then would have a picnic breakfast after, and it was important, this first year since her mother's death, for Charlotte to keep that tradition.
The problem was, none of the guard had agreed to accompany her, and in fact had given her dozens of reasons she shouldn't go at all, particularly that it was in the very early hours of the morning, when it was still dark out.
So she'd taken to her old habits, slipping out quietly, staying in the shadows, such as they were on a New Moon night, and rather than take her own horse, who was safely housed in the stable, she had taken one of the larger carriage horses from the pasture, where no one would be watching.
Riding bareback was not a problem for the young princess, at least while she was alone and there was no one to tell her that it was unseemly, nor to chastise her for galloping across the fields at a pace that could potentially be harmful, should there be an accident.
But there was no accident, and eventually she reached the edge of the trees, where she slipped off the horse and started to walk, looking for the vibrant white flowers that only bloomed in the moonlight and needed to be harvested during the full moon.
"The Goddess is our Light in the darkness," she murmured the mantra her mother had taught her as she knelt to pluck the blooms, "she is our Mother Soul..."
Tears started to blur her vision, but that didn't deter her from her task.