Atem x Reader ☆ In the Twilight

Chapter 1

There's a kiss in the wind...

A touch of love upon my brow...

The first time you hear melodies play deep within the still forests under the eves of night you are ten.

And far too curious.

You are dashing into the woods before your mind can stop you—tell you not to go. Tonight you follow your heart, and your heart says not to slow. They won't even miss you, they'll hardly even know. You'll be gone for a moment, and then straight back home—they'll never even know.

I hear them call for me to come...

And so I go to my sweet love...

Those words, sung soft in love, are not for you. Yet they call on the wind with yearning desire, searching, beckoning—

Reaching out for their hand to hold...

I feel their touch and fires stoked...

As if it is your hand being held, you are led along further into warmth. Your heart falls into it willingly, a girlish excitement stealing air from your lungs and leaving you breathless. You can imagine being older—a beautiful young woman having been beckoned in song by her handsome lover; rendezvousing in the twilight.

We dance until the dawn has come...

And forces our sweet love away...

A fire burns within the deep forests bright, embers rising from the flames, and smoke billows up into the night. The fire—though enchanting in the way the colors sway from red to blue to purple—is not what lays you to raptures. It is the peoples. The elves.

In freedom, they dance around the fire in a beautiful circle. The women are elegance personified, swirling ribbons all about themselves, snapping and manipulating them into wild shapes. The men are full of grace; regal as they move around the women. Those that dance in pairs set the pace of their lover's heart. They do not move around the circle as the others do—they twine and spin only around each other, and the rest part for them.

It leaves you full of wonder and you ache to join them. Your fingers are left to grip and quiver at the bark of the tree you hide behind. Their joyous faces are tinged in firelight, and laughter tumbles from their lips even as their voices continue rising into song—a beautiful cadence of harmony. They spin and dance and sing barefoot under the bright moon and you watch from a secret place. An unknown spectator of beautiful tradition. And then you fall into the warm flames of purple eyes.

You are caught.

And the elven boy has paused his dance to take notice of you.

Flushed and still breathless, your heart races.

The boy tilts his head, peering at you curiously. Your fingers dig harder into the tree. He grins. 

A single finger comes up over the boy's lips.

'Hush,' it seems to say.

But the wink he tosses you as he turns a shoulder to resume the dance tells you what it really means,

'I'll stay silent.'

—So you can stay and watch.

Your heart quickens anew, but it follows the beat of a strange and unfamiliar tempo.

All at once you feel the foolish girl having snuck away from home to chase flights of fancies in the unknown. The darkness of the night creeps in on you, and ashamed, caught, and startled, you flee away under its cover.

Back to your village.

Back to home.

And you try to forget the beautiful songs and wonderful dances.

You try to forget purple eyes and secretive little boys.

You try to forget a world you unwelcomingly waltzed in on.

Yet voices of enchantment still follow deep within your dreams.

The softer you sleep, the more wonder begins to ache, and you start to believe silly girlish things.

Who said girlish things were silly? 😌 

I was going to have this be a SUPER long one-shot and decided nah, because I'm impatient. So enjoy the more that is still yet to come as I get back into the swing of writing.

NOTE: The reader WILL NOT be a child the entire story. We've got a romance to flourish after all~! But it is all about the journey and this is a slow-born (I guess?), so just sit tight for a little while.