When Stars Align || G. Lafayette

Chapter 1

Wind whistled past my ears as I spurred my horse through the golden fields of wheat, my frail attempt to keep up with my brother Nael. Adrenaline coursed through my veins; the last fence was in sight, and I was nearing the finish, but I silently cursed as I saw Nael already turning back to face me, a smug grin on his face.

"You are too slow, soeur cadet." He grinned and I rolled my eyes at his ego.

"Not all of us are amazing as you, frere aîne." I shot him a playful glare as I finally jumped the last fence, joining him in the clearing beyond our farm.

"Right, for ze first time," he teased, coaxing a chuckle from me. We began to circle each other on horseback as a mischievous smirk played at my lips.

"'Ow about a rematch? And zis time you do not start before we count down," I suggested.

"Do you want really to embarrass yourself even more? I vould have thought you 'ad 'ad enough."

"You wish I would give up. To ze hill at ze center of ze farm?" I cocked an eyebrow at him, and his face broke into a wide grin.

"You are on."

We took off once again, this time with me pulling slightly ahead as my horse galloped towards the small hill. And then, managing to escape Nael's line of vision, I dropped off of the path, stifling a laugh at my brother's triumphant smile. I waited just a moment before trotting off in the other direction towards my house.

"Où allez-vous?" Nael shouted, finally realizing that I was no longer with him.

"I am going to get to dinner first," I shouted back with a grin as I neared the small stable on the outside of my house, but before going in, I pulled my horse, Rachel, to face the horizon behind me. I absentmindedly began to run my hand down her silky coat, feeling her breathing in her chest.

She was a rather small horse, a white lipizzan splattered with gray all down her back. My father had gotten her for me from a local trader, and I hadn't thought twice before naming her Rachel after my mother. 

I had never known my mother, aside from the tales of my father's time with her in the Caribbean. Supposedly, she was a beautiful woman, and my father and she had met three years after his wife's passing, as his ship took a detour on a trading route to France. They'd met one day in the market, and were infatuated with each other within that day.

Of course, I was the unintended result of that infatuation. She had written my father six months after he left, telling him of her pregnancy and asking him to come back and take me when I was born. She told him of her struggles with the one child she already had, and that she couldn't possibly support another. And so he came, and so I left.

I sighed at the memories of the stories I'd heard so many times, bringing my wandering mind back to bask in my surroundings. It was an absolutely breathtaking sight to look down on the rolling fields that were bathed in the late sunlight, and to see the pink sky hanging above as the sun departed between the two.

I was so taken with the sight that it wasn't for a few minuted that I realized what it meant for me.

"Frere aîne! It is sunset! Père will be home any minute!" I yelled back to him as I quickly tied up my horse and walked back towards our house.

Our father had left on a long trip to France, his birthplace, six months ago. He was to return that night at sunset, and nothing could have dulled my excitement to see him again.

My face was covered with a grin that could have illuminated the entire room as I threw open our wooden back doors. It was almost instantly replaced with a look of concern and confusion as the first thing I saw was my grandmother sitting in her rocking chair with her head in her hands. Her entire body was shaking uncontrollably, moved by the loud sobs escaping her.