@verdantkind
In Tortall the new year was greeted quite differently than how her people met with it. Though she gladly danced and took part in the merriment a small part of her still longed to share a part of home with her friends and the traditions she’d known all her life.
Shinko and Yuki traded poems they’d written one another, a pasttime they'd started as girls.
She sought out Kel during the midday festivities, offering her these sweet rice buns that were like sticky white dumplings.
Now she was paused outside his quarters,
hesitant to raise a hand and knock on the door when suddenly it opened.
She let scape an all together too feminine gasp, stumbling back as he caught her arm and steadied her.
A package fell to the floor between them coming undone.
The ties around the brown paper loosened and out spilled a green scarf, woven together with threads of gold spun into a design that mirrored his family’s crest. She’d worked on this for weeks - tirelessly - and she knelt to pick it up holding it out in her hands.
“I sent a prayer to the Wave Walker that your journey to Carthak with the Lionness in the weeks to come is an easy and safe one. There are tales of how the Lady Knight suffers from sea sickness and I wish you both well… I know we did trade blessings for the New Year but it is customary on the Yamani Isles to trade poetry, give a gift or take a meal with those we wish good fortune to. We believe Yama blesses our food and offerings we bring to her temple.”
She stood up on her tippy toes - he’d gotten taller somehow these past months - and she draped the fabric around his neck.
“I ask you to accept it, if it would please you. I was told how….how very cold it gets and when I think of you camping out with the Lioness hunting bandits and the like it….it only made me worry a little,” she insisted letting her hands fall down to clasp them in front of her.
“If that will be all Neal, I wish you pleasant tidings and much happiness,” she said quickly hearing laughter echo from down the corridor.
Rushed for time she rose up on her tippy toes and gently brushed her lips against his, an innocent kiss by far but the first she’d ever truly given another.
And Great Mother Goddess how rosy her fair complexion turned!
Quiet laughter sounded behind her lips that pursed together in a smile.She was so pleased with herself - but she could not keep it to herself for long and so she laughed, covering her mouth with a hand as she managed to say between her giggles,
“I am told it is a tradition here to share something with another called ‘Midwinter luck’. By kissing them…?” she said as if she were unsure yet still shaking with mirth, “what a strange tradition…but Kel told me, so it must be true. A-and she said you would like it. But even so…”
She sighed folding her hands in front of her and bowed.
“For midwinter luck Neal. Good day…”
