the parting glass
Down a side street at the Darkmoon Faire, patrons could easily happen upon a stall covered in lepidoptera in all shapes and colors. The scent of drying herbs was potent in the air, or perhaps the scent radiated out of small mortar and pestle which always seemed to have something burning inside of it.
The roof off the pop-up stall was bright red, sun catchers made of glass and mirror pieces hung around to catch what little light the dark skies above the faire offered.
For those who came to the House of the Red Moth, they rarely left empty-handed. The madame of the stall of small notoriety for giving strange gifts or bits of advice to all who visited her. At a distance, her stark white hair made her look far older than she was. She was a Kul Tiran small in stature, unimposing-- and though she was no longer a young woman, her face still held the amount of youth one might expect from a woman in their early forties. The most unsettling thing about her was the milky-white eyes which always stared vacantly ahead.
Another fixture of the Darkmoon Faire had become Lymantria’s “sister”, Corva. One glance at the Kaldorei was enough to reveal they weren’t related remotely. Her hair was the color of wheat ready for harvest, decorated with baubles and black crow feather. Her eyes bright and golden and a smile almost never left her lips. Her lips which never imparted words. They had been with the faire for long enough that it felt as though she were a fixture there-- and perhaps that was why it was time for something new.
‘What will we do there,’ Corva knit her brows and signed at her blind companion.
“What we have been doing these last years. Ensure they are prepared. Ensure we are prepared,” Lymantria responded packing in the stall. “And yes, we can still come to the faire. I know you enjoy it here.” Corva scrunched up her face and gave an awful huff at her sister’s predictions. ‘What about R-A-Z?’ Corva spelled out the letters of their final sister’s name. “She will come with us when the time is right, hurry now. The cart needs loaded if we’re to make the ship in time.”
The sleeping down of Duskwatch was the only place that truly made sense for the first ever, stationary location for House of the Red Moth. Its strange and sleepy nature was attractive to anyone that claimed to be a mystic or a purveyor of odd objects. Energy was so thick in the air that Lymantria could taste it.
In the month prior, she’d arranged for a storefront at the edge of a main street. Not that there were many streets to choose from in Duskwatch. Velerodra had selected the place based on Lymantria’s requests. A large window in the front, a place to hang a sign, and a humble apartment up above the shop itself.
Though she could not see it, not really-- Lymantria found the place to her liking. She stood there, seeming to stare up at the sign which bore the shop’s namesake in raised calligraphy. Something was cold about the air there, it sent a shiver down her spine. “Hello,” she greeted someone unseen. “I do hope that we can get along,” she said, before she heard the wheels of the cart Corva drove come to a stop behind her. The chill left the air and Lymantria merely smiled before going to begin the arduous task of unpacking all of her things into their new home. @velerodra-valesinger @deadsunharbor