Moonlight spills like silver silk over everything, pooling along the marble edges of the fountain where water falls in a slow, endless cascade. Each drop catches the light before breaking, turning into a thousand trembling fragments that glow and disappear into the still surface below. The air carries that faint mist, cool and soft, brushing against skin like a whispered secret.
And beside it—
the swing.
Large, carved, suspended from arching branches woven with pale blossoms and creeping ivy. It moves gently, creaking in a slow rhythm, as if the night itself is rocking it.
That’s where she is.
Isolde.
Lying across it like she doesn’t belong to the world inside the mansion at all.
Her head hangs off one edge, long brown hair spilling downward, brushing against the grass below—dark strands catching streaks of moonlight, blending with shadows like ink in water. The tips move slightly with the breeze, grazing the earth as if the ground itself is trying to hold onto her.
On the other side, her feet lift into the air, bare, weightless, swaying faintly with the motion of the swing.
Her dress—
white, with soft traces of lavender woven through it—flows around her like it has no structure of its own. The fabric breathes with the night, shifting with every small movement, catching light in places and fading into shadow in others. It doesn’t sit on her—it *floats*, like she’s part of something unreal.
The swing creaks again.
Slow.
Measured.
She doesn’t seem to notice.
Her attention is elsewhere.
A rose rests in her hand—freshly plucked, its petals deep and full, almost too alive against the softness of everything around her.
She lifts it lazily.
Traces it across her forehead.
Down along her temple.
