May pulled her cloak tighter around her neck. The air was bitter that night, despite the candles glowing and reflecting in the lake like fireflies.

She turned the page of her book and gazed through the flickering light at their paradise.

Wilting roses swayed drunkenly, dancing with the musk-scented breeze. Crickets hummed through the oasis, their music making ripples in the honey-like water.

The stars were brighter than ever before and seemed to smile on them.

May sighed happily, regarding the others through the smoke-laden air. There were 6 of them in total. They didn’t have a name, but all were artists of some sort. They would meet in the woods and do whatever they felt the need to do, on nights like these.

She was lifted from her daydream by a heavy splash of water. Laughter rolled through the grove as a figure, Frankie, cut through the molten gold of the lake.

Frankie grinned and gestured for the others to join her before letting herself be pulled back underwater.

Leaving her paperback on the shore, May joined her friends and slid into the depths. She bit back a gasp as the cold soaked through her clothes and started jumping up and down to keep warm.

The group messed around chasing and splashing each other, spraying waterdroplets that turned to amber in the candlelight.

And so they continued, until the early hours of the morning when the strawberry light of dawn floated from the east and the wind grew brighter with the birdsong it carried.

It felt like everything- like nothing else could possibly be as significant as that moment. When nothing existed but them and the stars.