Daphne walked through the streets, moving her flowing brown curls out of the way as she pulled her blue shawl tighter around her, using it to ward herself against the breeze as she walked, she wondered where the day had gone. It felt like only mere moments ago that the gentle light of morning had awoken her from her slumber, and she had readied herself for a day of brewing. It had been a while since she had replenished the stock of remedies for her father to sell with their other goods at the market, amongst the cloth that her mother weaved and the goods that her father or brothers brought home from their many trading journeys to other cities and other lands.
The river breeze grew slightly stronger as she walked and she could imagine its path, as meandering as it was, through the haphazard streets of her home, past house after house made from bricks made from the clay of the river's banks, and past the workers that maintained and constructed them. Past the market and its cacophony of merchants and traders crying out, offering deals to passing strangers. Past schools, and libraries, and workshops filled with scribes and workers carving into clay their mysterious angular writing or other even more secretive practices, and finally past the great brick walls of Queen Semiramis that had encircled the city from its youth, passing out into the fields, and orchards, and pastures of the many herdsmen and farmers that fed the city with their irrigated fields.
Daphne carried her way through the city, past the people lounging in the afternoon sun, or strolling through the city with their curled hair, dyed tunics and tasselled shawls, enjoying the remains of the day. She approached the walls to the inner city, a resplendent gate, deep blue like sapphires shining in the light, adorned with glistening, golden lions, and passed through it to the main street of the city, a long road intended for processions with high walls on either side with their own blue and leonine decorations, through the throngs of other people that traversed the gate, passing themselves into the inner city. She passed the palace and the courts of the king, and his officials that flanked the western side of the gate, with the splendour of the royal gardens, with their tiered layers, a mountain of greenery within the centre of the dusty, mudbrick city, decorating the court as if a leafy crown.
Arriving at the end of the processional way she turned towards the west where the great buildings of the city's patron stood, the temple of Marduk with its rich decorations, blinding passers-by in its glory, the home of the secretive mysteries of the priests and the great ziggurat to him, layered with tower after tower upon each other with many staircases leading to the shrine upon its summit. Daphne was thankful that there was no celebration or procession today that might have impeded her progress.
She approached the westwards gate into and out of the city, this one not as luxurious as the one that led from the outer city to the cavalcade grounds, the gate was flanked by several guards with leather armour and holding long spears with wooden shields within their hands, helms of blinding copper, gleaming in the evening sun, decorating their heads. The gate itself held a great iron portcullis, a strong metal that would protect the city should the need arise, leading on to a bridge of cedar from far to the west, over a grand waterway that lined and protected the west of the city.
Leaving the city, she walked for a while, past the herds and the fields, past the orchards, past wheat, and barley and pomegranates. The outside air and wide open spaces soothed her soul after having been within the stifling air of the city for far too long and she enjoyed her voyage down the somewhat dusty path, eventually coming to a stretch of grass with a mulberry tree in the background, it's expansive leaf-laden boughs displaying a pleasant light green colour against the bright blue of the sky, and several juniper bushes, from which she could collect ingredients for her many salves, dotted around like little green posts.
Daphne following her journey, rested beneath the shade of the tree, enjoying the pleasant view that the location provided and relaxing from her journey a-while before she set to work. She got up and pottered around the trees, looking for the freshest and healthiest of the parts of the junipers, and where she found them she put them in the leather bag that she carried, strapped upon her waist.
She occasionally stopped from her work to take a sip from the crisp, clean waters of the spring that bubbled nearby or to admire the elaborate tomb of King Ninus that lay a short distance away, adorned with statues of gods, lions and other things, a monument to the long gone monarch, as well as the landscape that birthed her city.
Eventually she heard the slow, steady slap of feet hitting the ground in the distance behind her, and turned to see who was on the approach. A man with pale skin, white as lilies and unusual hair, not coiffured in the usual style, but rather hanging loose, like curtains that had been cut from a moonless sky. He wore a red tunic and loincloth, with several pouches and a short copper blade tied upon his waist. She recognised him immediately of course, his raised cheeks and eyes, green like the canopy of a tree, he was the handsome neighbour boy, not that her parents would be pleased if she ever voiced such thoughts. Their two families had been rivals for as long as anyone could remember, not that either of them really agreed with their families blind hatred, she certainly didn't and it was a feeling that she got from the boy whom had never shown a dislike for her.
"Daphne," he said as he approached. "I come out here, so far from the city and what do I find but my neighbour, dressed so resplendently by the very plants I have come to collect supplies from."
"A strange luck indeed," she replied, breaking a bit off of the Juniper by which she stood, blushing slightly at his compliment. "You can help me then, and I'll help you. With two hands we should have as much as we need in half of the time."
So together they harvested bits of Juniper whilst talking inanely to one another about various subjects and making jokes, and eventually they were done and they went to rest beneath the expansive mulberry and bask in one another's company, first still talking and then settling into a comfortable silence as they watched the sky turn a multitude of red and gold, eventually ceding to purple.
Eventually they had to leave however so getting up they started to make their journey back to the city. As they neared the walls they knew that they couldn't be seen in the city together, lest their parents find out so the boy went off the track slightly and beckoned her to follow.
They went a short ways before stopping near some bushes, before he decided to speak. Daphne felt her heart start to speed up a bit in nervous, what is it that he wanted to say to her, did he enjoy her company or did he never want to see her again. She hoped it was the former, having quite enjoyed their conversation and his company.
"I enjoyed this evening. It made a nice change from my own dismal company." He laughed, self-deprecatingly. "By any chance would you like to meet again, say tomorrow, here, for a walk?"
"I'd love to," a smile breaking out on her face.
"Fantastic, I shall see you then," he paused slightly. "Thisbe."
She felt a blush come over her at the nickname, to be given a nickname after the dove, a symbol of Ishtar, the Queen of Heaven and Goddess of Love and Beauty herself. Daphne looked away quickly, hoping that her would-be suitor did not see the redness that had spread across her pale cheeks.
She looked back up, being aware of the time and hoping that the blush on her face had gone down somewhat.
"I shall see you tomorrow then."
She started walking away slightly before an idea crossed her mind, and she walked back to him, grasped him by his red tunic and pulled him down towards her, kissing his lips fiercely.
"Goodbye...Harry." she said as she saw him blush as she looked into his eyes, green as the junipers they had just picked. Before turning around and heading home with a slight skip in her step and a blush at the thought of her actions and her joy at the day tomorrow would bring.
