They met in the fall.
She was looking up at the World Tree, legs folded in front of her and her arms wrapped around them. Her hair was cut short, hanging about her face in blue-rooted ringlets. She looked like she'd been crying, but her face –obscured in the shadows, as it was by the massive tree- only looked wistful.
He had not expected to see her.
He'd managed to get away from his amphir-fair by borrowing some clothes from a spring faerie. It had been easy enough, but he knew they would come looking for him sooner rather than later.
They both physically looked about five years old, mentally they were nearly ten, and in reality they were in the middle. But in Avalon, age was not a factor, when you were born you immediately started to work to keep your home safe. That's just how it was.
By her dress, he guessed her to be a summer faerie, a Sparkler. He could see her Familiar next to her, taking the form of a small dragon curled into a ball but not asleep.
He approached her cautiously; how he would approach a human if he ever met one, "Are you alright?" He murmured quietly, hands clutched together in front of him.
She startled, not having seen him, "I'm not sure," she replied. It took her a moment of studiously eyeing him, not taking in what he was wearing, before she shot up from the ground, her Familiar jumping onto her shoulder, "You- you're-"
He looked around, as if someone would hear her exclamations, "Shh! Calm down-"
"You're a Winter! I am so sorry for my rudeness!" She went down on her knee, breaking eye contact with him.
He took a step forward, pulled her up so she was standing at his eye-level, "Be calm –I am only myself here."
It took her a moment to get her breathing under control, but she still wiped her eyes and soothed out the summer-dress she was wearing, as if he hadn't witnessed her almost in tears.
"What's your name?" He asked, letting go of her arms and sitting down on the slightly damp grass.
She rushed to answer, not having had an actual conversation –or having even met- a Winter Faerie before. She knew what the rules were, but they stated that this conversation shouldn't even be possible, "Leliana, I'm from Summer."
He smiled warmly, eyeing the small faerie as she sat down next to her "I'm-"
"Oren," she finished, "One of the four Winter Fae. It's an honour."
His smile dissipated, "I told you. I'm just myself here."
"I'm sorry if I offended-"
He turned to her, grasping her dark skinned and calloused hands in his pale ones, "Do I look any different to your average Fae?"
Not understanding what he meant, she shook her head.
He continued, "exactly. I am just the same as you. I breathe the same carbon dioxide as you. I am not above or under and I have not done anything to warrant you thinking you're underneath me. So please," he finished, "treat me as your equal. Because that's what we are."
Leliana's head tilted to the side, her blue eyes the same colour as the roots of her hair, "Equal…" She liked the sound of that word, when applied to this conversation.
She was sure it was a dream. Some escape borne of the fear and loss she had been feeling after the loss of her mother and father.
"Why are you sitting here? Shouldn't you be…"
"Anywhere but under the World Tree?" She finished, swallowing, "I … keep hoping it will provide some answers. But no such luck. Not for me." She wouldn't elaborate, and he didn't ask her to.
He looked up at the massive trunk of the tree, feeling the air humming with energy, as if the whole area was alive and connected to him, "I come here to escape."
She looked at him, her eyebrows creasing, "But why? You're a Winter, you're free to do whatever you like and nobody can question it."
He smiled bitterly, "Yes I'm free –so long as I sit my lessons quietly, stay within the palace walls, always speak when spoken to and make sure never to speak to the lesser Fae." He winced, "Yes I'm completely free."
She sat there for a moment, "Is that why you're wearing Spring get-up?"
He looked at his clothes. The ill-fitting shirt and the cotton pants that he'd rolled up because they were too long made him look like he was playing dress-up. Though they were made from material that didn't chafe, they weren't what he was used to.
Oren's hair was a stark white, matching his skin, matching the silver of his eyes. If it wasn't plain obvious he was a Winter Faerie, then it certainly was just looking at his features. He was too skinny to be a Spring, too small to be a Summer, and did not hold the same inquisitiveness that characterized the Fall Faeries.
By anyone's standards, Oren looked sickly, the paleness of his features made him look that way. It wasn't true though; he was as healthy as any five-year-old Fae. That didn't stop the queen from babying him. Or his guards from shamelessly hovering over his every step.
They sat on the grass in silence, these two young Fae. Not knowing what the future would hold for them. Not knowing that their lives had been entwined, two halves of a whole, since the days they were born.
Their destiny had been chosen for them. Written into the stars and the heavens long before either of them were a thought. Neither of them knew what the other was thinking, or what their lives would be like after this moment. But hopefully, they would stay together, hopefully things would change.