Brightfeather was in love.
The sun was bright and hot and the breeze through the streets bought with it the smell of cooking and washing and flowers. It beat down on his face and warmed his skin and clothes, and when he moved, the dark fabrics rubbed against his skin.
As he hovered next to the door to the bakery, he was, he smiled to himself, In Love.
The object of his love was named ‘The Sky Blue, the Heather Upon the Moors’, and they were known around town as Moorheather.
It was, Brightfeather thought, the most beautiful name that he had ever heard. He didn’t know what heather was, or moors, but some enquiries had informed him that it was a sort of small purple bush and a large hill, respectively. Beautiful. Majestic!
It was a name that deserved to have songs made about it. Poets should write whole screeds about that name. If he had been such a man, then he would have written all of his poems around it, he would have used it as his start and his end, and he would have crafted lines which would be sung to the heavens for generations to come. But he wasn’t, so instead, he improvised with food.
He had first spotted his love a week before, whilst on a reconnaissance run through the city. The circus had been due to arrive that afternoon, and he had gone on ahead to find some food and a good spot for dinner.
It was by the fountain in the central square that he had spotted them for the first time. Their smooth brown hair framed their face, reflecting the sun until it glowed almost red. Their skin was dark, patterned with subtle stripes, like that of a boar, their eyes a vibrant greeny-blue, reflecting the sheen and ripples of the water behind them.
They were wearing a light shift-dress, their feet and ankles bare, and had a basket of clothes balanced on one hip. Behind them, the fountain reflected the summer light, and beside them bounced a small dog, trying to reach something it wanted from the basket. Its fur was bright and clean, and it had obviously taken its own dip in the wash-water. Sparkling like magic in the morning sun, the whole thing was a perfect image.
That was the moment Brightfeather fell in love.
He had hung around the area for a while after she had gone, and from the locals had learnt the name and intonation of the object of his affection. Moorheather. She came to the area once a week to wash her clothes, and she did it neatly and efficiently, before disappearing for another week. Nobody knew where she lived, but she would be back next week for sure.
-
The circus had taken up his time for most of the next week, so he hadn't had time to search her out. They’d picked up a couple of new kids in the last town, but some of the goats were staging some sort of mutiny and Dreamspears was still a little afraid of them.
Added to that, a new attraction had joined up. It was a shooting game with paper targets and small pistols, and they’d had to rearrange the whole setup after the Lumpox had gotten spooked and threatened to demolish several wagons. Only careful mollification by its handler had de-escalated that situation, and everyone was thankful she had been there.
They’d chained the guns down after that, modifying the wagon so that the guns couldn’t be pointed at the animals. That particular child had been sent home with a reprimand, but it had been an accident waiting to happen, so they weren't blamed too harshly.
Still, it had necessitated a whole rapid rearranging of the whole area, as well as a good bit of carpentry, and he had been drafted in to help.
But that was by the by. It was Sunday and he was leaning against the wall of a bakery, a basket of bread and cakes under one arm, waiting to see his love for the second time.
And there she was! Entering the square, with her willow basket of washing balanced on one hip, heading towards the communal wash-basins. Watching her move across the courtyard, the way she expertly balanced the basket, the way her feet seemed to glide across the floor. Brightfeather fell in love all over again.
It was the middle of summer, and the busiest time of year for the circus, so he really shouldn’t have been taking the time off, but surely nobody would notice his absence, as long as he got back before the evening rush.
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-
Moorheather wasn’t thinking about much of anything, as she hauled the washing to the public fountains. She had been in this routine for months, if not years now, and the weekly wash was the symbolic end to her week.
Technically, the housing estate she lived on had a big shared wash-copper she could have used, but it was only fired up on Tuesdays, and she worked down at 'The Lock and Quay' on Tuesdays. If it had been Mondays or Wednesdays, she could have managed it, but not Tuesdays.
She hummed to herself as she dumped the washing into the trough, rolling up her sleeves and lathering up the soap. She had enough left over from rent this week to maybe pick up some sweet cakes for dinner. Then, if she got off early from her shift in the flower shop, she could borrow a bike from next door and go and see her great-grandma outside of town. It would only take a couple of hours and the old woman would appreciate it.
With renewed vigour and her day planned out, Moorheather got to scrubbing.
-
He had tried to approach her twice, the prepared speech forming a solid lump in his throat. Sure he’d had crushes in the past, but he'd never been in love, and it was a whole different beast. Plus, to actually ask somebody out? How did you do that!
The first attempt had failed. He had been so busy planning out his words, that he had just kept walking. Only realising that he had forgotten to stop when he hit the wall on the other side of the square.
On the second attempt, he had made it almost all the way to her, before he realised he was approaching from behind, and that might seem weird or creepy. It had been too late to change his path in a way that still looked natural, so he had instead turned towards the fountain, staring down into the blue waters for a while, before changing his course and walking away, whistling. Whistling always made you seem normal, right?
She didn’t have the dog with her today, which was a disappointment. You could always go up to somebody and admire their dog, but going up and admiring their soapy underthings was a little weirder.
He wasn’t the best-looking person out there, Brightfeather knew that. He’d never had the contacts or money to be able to afford a Change, so his face was rounder than he would have liked, his chest larger, although luckily that had never grown beyond control, his nose was wonky where it had been broken as a child, and a myriad of other things.
On top of that, he had washed his clothes yesterday and was wearing his best outfit, but his trousers were almost around his knees now, just a little too tight and permanently stained from a life lived on grass. He brushed at them self-consciously, as if tugging at them with a hand would make them longer.
A couple of the women had helped him scrub them, but there was only so much soap and water could do, and everyone had agreed that they were fit for rags. The shirt wasn’t much better, but he had heard that girls liked the ragged, short-sleeved look, and he had opened the top buttons to let the air in, and to hopefully look sexier.
Attempt number three, this was it! Brightfeather swallowed the lump in his throat, and sauntered, with what he hoped was a confident and friendly manner, up towards the girl he was In Love with. Everything was going to be fine. He could do this.
-
Moorheather was done with her washing, and he could almost see the steam coming off it in the late-morning sun. Today was going to be a scorcher, maybe he should have picked up some sweet tea to go with the cakes and bread.
As he walked across the square, with all the air of a convict heading towards the gallows, he practised his rehearsed lines.
The list started with “Hi”, and “Hello!” and then morphed into gradually worse and worse ideas the further down the list he went. The best one, in his opinion, was “Hey baby, wanna come back to my place and see a Lumpox?” which seemed like it should work. Who didn't want to see a Lumpox!
He had tried it on the washerwomen and they had all agreed that he shouldn’t go with that one, no matter how bad his other options seemed. A complete veto. He had thought it was pretty good, but a consensus was a consensus.
None of them worked in his head though, and so he had decided to wing it. If he didn’t, then she was gonna leave and the circus would be gone by the time he got his act together.
Deep breaths. You got this Brightfeather. Here goes.
“Heeey”
Oh gods.
“I uh…”
"I..."
Brightfeather blanked. His whole mind was a clean, white sheet, hanging up to dry in the summer breeze. She was half a head taller than him, so he had a moment of standing, staring blankly into her chin, as if staring hard enough would somehow allow it to manifest the right words, so he could ask the love of his life out. Not that he was great at reading, but maybe it would be in phonetics or something.
His Love started down at him for a moment, confusion clear on her face, before she adjusted her grip on the basket and took a step backwards, looking to either side of herself, and then behind. “Yes?”
Brightfeather started, looking around for a moment like a dog caught doing something it shouldn’t be doing, before coming back to his senses, sheet blown away by a freak storm. “I uh, Ijustwantedtoaskyouifyouwantedtocometo-“
He coughed, and then coughed again, something caught in his throat, and she stared at him for a moment, before placing the basket carefully down onto the ground. “Are you alright?”
He nodded, still coughing, taking a moment to contain the fit, “Yeah I uh,” squeeze the eyes shut. Say it! You faced down a bear once, you helped contain a Lumpox, you told off a child with a gun! “I uh just wanted to ask if you wanted to come on a picnic with me!” he brandished his basket out in front of himself like a shield, “I bought bread!”
She seemed to think about this, looking him up and down. His short trousers, his ragged shirt, his long hair tied back with string and the basket of bread in his arms.
Then she looked into his face, and shrugged, “sure, why not, sounds like fun!”
Yes, he was in!