A Market on a patch of land, a beautiful girl gambling through stones on a river bridge. Blake ─ that is what she would say, if you'd ever dare to ask her, her name.
Her long midnight tresses did not hesitate to kiss her dress every time she hopped from rock to rock, the ever-present book in hand never to be mocked. It was a lovely day out, but perhaps she could do without the persistent interruptions by irritant admirers, who didn't get the no the first time around.
Some monkey boy appeared from nowhere from time to time, wondering if she'd give him the joy of going on a fine date. She usually went with a "no", so he would pout and say "great!", though she could see that wasn't what he wanted at all. And she hit the bull.
"You totally rock, you're crazy and cool! What am I supposed to do ─ Just sit here and not fall in love with you?", and a time came in which she was just so done with this never ending suffering that she just responded with a "yes" and walked away. She was so sure she would see him again some other time, a shiver ran down her spine.
And god, at the moment what she would give to be right; for instead of the eager boy, appeared a full grown guy with petals on a bouquet as distressed as his ill-timed manners. The girl was just satisfied she had reached her dad's shop, a modest man with stories of seas he crossed.
"Stay away from my daughter, young man, or you will not stay alive to ask her out yet again."
Her father would claim, and she was just glad Adam would care.
Even if she didn't see the most obnoxious man to ever exist, some other times even her friend would give her a hard time to keep.
"Ilia, please, this is not something one can control ─"
"I know, I know. I just can't help being so in love with you. You're like a dream that's come true."
A blush, a muttered sorry, a thousand scattered pieces of another's heart, and a goodbye later, and she was down a path she thought she would finally have some peace and quiet. After all, this place was hers and hers alone. No one else's. No relentless boys, crazy stalkers, and fallen friends to worry about. Right now, there was only she and a book who seemed to attract some bees.
(It certainly wasn't her! She's not sweet, thank you.)
But the butterflies and the birds won't say a word about how glaringly wrong she was.
And as she got to the place where she went as frequent as she deemed necessary to breathe, she suddenly came to a halt, another one having beaten her to the punch.
The young person turned around, and her heart seemed to somersault inside her precariously close to implode body.
She hadn't seen anybody here in a long time. Who was this stranger on her park? And most important, why was she feeling so foreign?
"Oh, hi! I seem to have gotten lost. I didn't mean to come to this garden, and now I don't know where to go from here. Could you be so kind as to help me?"
"S-sure!"
And Blake, the girl who tended to be as dark as her namesake (or so she thought), suddenly felt very corny with all the lovely reveries about the other girl's eyes.
And hair.
And more endowed features.
She was certain she had never quite seen this much beautifulness. Beauty! Beauty, she meant. Oh my, why wasn't her brain suddenly working right?
The blush that took residence in her face whispered in her progressively dramatic heart that it promised never to leave its side. And it was with immense pleasure what she raised her head to find ─ a twin warmth on the stranger's face, decorated with the most beautiful smile.
"I hope I'm not being an inconvenience", she said, and plucked a flower to use as a white flag. She never wanted this meeting to reach its impending end. "And if you don't mind my brash candor, please, allow me to tell you about the most beautiful flower I found today."
Her heart fell and turned to ash and grey. She thought her stranger would complement her the very way she wished she were courageous enough to do, and now, lost chance, lost cause.
"Her eyes are ambers like the sweetest honey I tasted, and hair as dark as night skies that kept me awake. I bet her hand's as soft as her voice, which I wished to hear yet again many times more."
The other girl's eyes narrated infatuation and hope, to which she responded for the first ever with a silent one of her own. Gathering the last of her nerves, she dared.
"I was already going to help you, but since you're lost, maybe I could show you some pebbles. You seem to have time, and the river view is just marvelous." Then she remembered, "Last I checked, mom was baking; would you like a piece of cake?"
"Well, it's a date."
