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The festival in Ashlynn’s memory was filled with the bustle of people, the sounds of laughter and music and the smells of dozens of dishes overlapping with the salty air of the fresh sea breeze.

The Holy Festival of Light was the largest festival of the year in Blackwell County.

In places like Lothian March, the Lord’s Harvest in the fall was even bigger and Ashlynn had heard that in the northern territories, Mid Winter’s Night held the crown for the largest public celebration, but in Blackwell, the Holy Festival of Light had always been the busiest and most enthusiastically welcomed festival of the year.

People spent an entire week before the start of the festival setting up stalls and booths that lined the streets of the city center.

Some families spent an entire year preparing their wares.

Children combed the beaches each morning for perfect shells or rare sea glass while their parents transformed these treasures into delicate wind chimes that sang in the breeze or intricate jewelry that captured the ocean’s beauty.

The simplest crafts were often just strings of shells that children had cleaned and polished themselves. While they weren’t highly prized by locals, sailors from across the sea would still pay as much as a whole copper penny for a single string of shells that were free of chips or blemishes.

Meanwhile, families with older children or adults who were particularly skilled worked with delicate tools to turn the treasures of the sea into beautiful hair combs with intricate patterns of shell pieces or set sea glass into walking sticks carved from driftwood that were admired by everyone from young merchants to aging pensioners.

These handcrafted pieces would either be sold at family stalls during the festival or given away as prizes by those with the business acumen and wealth to host games for the common folk.

Most importantly, the spring squalls had ended and the autumn gales had yet to blow in, making this the best time of year for visitors from across the sea.

The busy port was filled with foreign traders, eager to snap up a piece of the ’new world’ to bring home to the old countries and flaunt their status before their less traveled peers.

Even a common deckhand with a few copper pennies in his pocket could find hours of entertainment and chances to bring home souvenirs worth their weight in silver across the sea.

"What kind of games are played at Eldritch festivals?" Ashlynn asked, as she guided Nyrielle to a street filled with small stalls and barkers trying to lure people to one particular game or another.

"You’ve heard about the arena in High Fen City," Nyrielle said, gazing more at the joyful expression on Ashlynn’s face than the sights of the festival around her.

"The Eldritch prefer physical competitions. If it isn’t gladiatorial combat, it might be wrestling matches, archery contests, or any number of other things. "

"In the Southern Steppes," Nyrielle continued.

"They play a game where brightly colored rings are hung on strings from poles and people from the Swift Hoof Clan race around a track with spears to catch as many rings as they can.

People from other clans may ride horses to compete alongside them.

The Eldritch value strength and most games they play have some martial application. "

"Well, these games aren’t nearly so aggressive," Ashlynn laughed, trying to imagine humans getting excited about the kinds of games that Nyrielle described. It wasn’t hard to imagine many people lining up to spectate at these sorts of contests but far too few people would be able to enjoy them.

"Here, let’s try this one," Ashlynn said, approaching a narrow and long stall where a man was juggling loops made of soft, pliable leather cord.

"Beautiful ladyships," the man greeted, smoothly stopping his juggling to offer a bow to the approaching women.

"Come to capture a few special adornments?

Such a delicate and dainty wrist deserves a spindle seashell charm," he said, holding up a simple leather bracelet with a polished spindle shaped seashell dangling from it.

"The more you snare, the more charms you win.

Three tosses for a penny," he said, holding out a trio of leather loops toward Ashlynn.

"Here," Ashlynn said, pressing four pennies into the man’s calloused hands.

"Six for me, and six for my love," she said, turning to Nyrielle.

"The goal is to throw your loop and have it catch on one of the pegs on the board at the far end," she said, pointing at a wooden board covered with different colored pegs about ten paces away from where they stood.

"You want me to win charms for you?" Nyrielle said, raising a questioning brow at Ashlynn.

"No," Ashlynn said, stretching up on her tiptoes to whisper into Nyrielle’s ear. "I want to see if you can beat me at the game. You might be a vampire, but I’ve played these since I was a child. Do you think you can win?"

Mischief glittered in Ashlynn’s eyes as she stepped up to the throwing line, spinning her loop of leather through the air with a practiced toss and catching it on a bright red painted peg that was nearly as large around as the loop itself.

"That’s three points for me, my love," Ashlynn said. "Can you match me?"

"I see," Nyrielle said, her eyes flashing as she accepted her lover’s challenge. If she just tossed the loop through the air, the floppy leather might not be ’open’ enough to fit around the wider pegs. "Who came up with this sort of game?"

"Sailors," Ashlynn said, giggling as Nyrielle’s throw failed to catch the large peg she’d thrown at.

The loop had sailed through the air toward a red peg with unerring precision that Ashlynn had expected of her vampire lover, but when the loop struck the board, it failed to hook around the peg and instead flopped uselessly to the sandy cobblestones below.

"Show me how you did that again," Nyrielle said, sharpening her focus on Ashlynn’s next throw after giving the limp loop of leather on the ground a look dark enough that if it had been a small animal, Ashlynn was certain it would scurry away in fear.

"If you watch when they’re working with ropes," Ashlynn said, effortlessly tossing another loop spinning through the air with a practiced twist of her wrist, this time catching a thinner blue post. "They can make a rope dance around mooring posts or all manner of other things when they need to secure things quickly on a ship. "

"So there are still practical skills here," Nyrille said, imitating Ashlynn’s movement and managing to loop one of the thinner blue posts. "Just not for battle."

"I guess so," Ashlynn said. "To me, it was just a bit of fun. I used to dream that if I could learn skills with ropes or things like this, I could sail somewhere far enough away that no one would care about my mark and I could just be normal..."

"Darling," Nyielle paused in her throwing, using the leather loop instead as a snare to capture Ashlynn’s wrist and pulling the other woman close to her.

"You deserve to be somewhere better than a place that just doesn’t care about what you are.

You should be celebrated for the woman you are instead of hiding your brilliance away. "

"I, I don’t know about that," Ashlynn said, her face heating as she struggled to meet Nyrielle’s intense gaze. "But, since my mark brought me to you, then it was worth the hardship to get here."

"Your hardship has been too much," Nyrielle said. Her arms wrapped around Ashlynn, pulling the other woman into a tight embrace, but her gaze looked over Ashlynn’s head at the distant Blackwell Manor.

How much of a prison must it have been for her love to dream of sailing away from this place, just to be an ordinary person? The thought of it was just too cruel.

"And I haven’t begun to shower you with enough affection to make up for all the years you suffered before you reached me," the vampire added. "But I promise, I will."

"You’d better," Ashlynn whispered into the dark fabric of Nyrielle’s dress. Her arms held the other woman tightly, feeling her cool flesh beneath the silky dress and breathing in her faint lavender fragrance.

"But don’t think you can distract me with pretty words," Ashlynn said, stepping back and wiping moisture away from her eyes as she returned to the throwing line.

This time, her loop spun with even greater precision than the first one, easily catching another of the thickest, most difficult red pegs.

"I’m still going to beat you at this game! "

"Don’t think I’ll make it easy for you," Nyrielle said, tossing a loop of her own and landing on the very same red peg as Ashlynn’s last throw. "You’ll find I’m a very quick study," she added with a playful smile and a challenging gleam in her midnight eyes.