Luminous: Silver and Emerald

1 - The Trail Hunt

Author's Note:

Before we begin...

Like The May Queen, this prequel was written long ago as a character exploration. Back then, the plot of Luminous was drastically different from what it is now, and I've had to alter several elements of this story for it to fit. As for how this side-story will fit into the main narrative, it will become clear by the end of the story (hopefully!)

Also, as this was written long ago, and I'm able to tweak only part of the prose, I apologize in advance if the tone, voice and flow feel a bit different from the Luminous you know.

This side-story will have 5-6 parts. I'll keep updating regularly!

Now, without further ado...Let's dive in!

🐉

Winter had arrived early in Manor Crosset, despite the autumn sun's earnest attempt to fend it off. Dreary sunlight lingered on the virgin snow, the last vestiges of her futile effort, heating what could have been a frigid morning to pleasantly warm. 

Shops and mud cottages flanked winding, narrow dirt lanes clogged with the rough mixture of snow and sludge. Cloth banners of all colors and patterns drooped from rafters, becoming unwilling hammocks (and latrine seats) for chilled, exhausted, fluffed-up birds that had refused to flee for south.

Both ends of each banner were knotted to those of the banners on the neighboring roofs, forming six cloth trails which traveled from the humblest shacks of the poorest farmers at the furthest fringes of the village, to converge at the summit of the local church's bell tower.

There were the softest of wool and oiliest of silk and richest of velvet, dyed in the most vivid of reds and deepest of blues and brightest of yellows, woven by all the women of Crosset. The cloth parade fluttered to the gentle wind as it rushed past, like rainbow on a rippling river.

The Fest of Freda was the most important week of the year, which came at its very end. Even a land as varied in culture as Latakia could not help but agree on this celebration to commemorate their independence from Nostra, brought about by the combined effort of every clan, tribe and village in the six regions.

Not that little Mistral Hild cared about all that, though, as young as she was. Shivering in her worn woolen dress, the tail of her tattered shawl flying behind her, she hurried towards the target at the end of her sightline, but it kept hopping from one rooftop to the next. 

Even though she knew the muddy lane was strewn with puddles filled with mud water cold as ice, which could ruin her already bedraggled dress, and bustling with countless girls and women who had embarked upon the same quest, the ten-year-old couldn't help not watching before she leapt.

Somewhere up there was her first masterpiece.

⏳

At the start of every year, a girl from each house who had turned ten would take up the job of weaving the family's Fest Trail; the long, colorful banner which would flutter on rooftops all through the Fest of Freda, and would be obliged to do so until the next girl in the house (if there were any) turned ten. 

Women young and old would toil on their trails all year long, spinning thread and weaving the longest and most beautiful cloth possible. On the eve of the Fest, the nuns would come to collect their work, mix them up, tie them together, and unite the trails at the church's bell tower.

Exactly. One would not get to hang one's trail over one's own house. That was the golden rule.

That was why Mistral couldn't be bothered less to slow down. If she were lucky, it would take at least a decade before she would have long, seemingly endless legs like her beautiful big sister Marin, who could cover three of her steps with just one stride. She still had roughly half the village to search, so she'd better be quick. She also had Myron and Marcus doing the looking for her, so why worry?