Key: // for italicised writing.

“Tonight will be our last sunset. You will never see me again.”

The young woman stood up abruptly from the patch of grass that she had been kneeling upon, bunching her long skirt in her hands as her eyes flickered slightly in distaste at the patches of green settling upon the material.

It was worth it, of course. Just for one more night.

She brushed down her legs demurely before turning her attention back to the other young lady who was simply /ogling/ at her, mouth half open, leaning backwards slightly as if to get away from the words that had just been spoken to her; to somehow soften the blow that ricocheted all the way from her chest to her stomach, pooling against the palpitating walls of her heart. No. This couldn’t be happening. She’d misheard, surely. Any minute now, she’d be waking up to the gentle thrum of a heartbeat, lulled whispers in her ear, and a hand caressing through her flaxen, dishevelled hair from a long, laborious day on the farm—those twelve words that she /hoped/ she’d never hear likened to nothing but a bad dream.

“My father knows what we’re doing.” The young woman stared off into the distance, those same hands interweaving over one another seamlessly as her long locks, beautifully coiffured in comparison, fluttered behind her in the wind. “Not only was he terribly classist, he… he doesn’t want me with a woman... and now he’s announced an…” Her voice tailed off as she wrung her hands, not wanting to bring the words to fruition. “An arranged marriage.”

With her voice dangerously close to cracking, she continued to speak—her mournful gaze illuminated in the soft glow of the striated oranges, reds and pinks which stretched across the horizon. She couldn’t stop now. It was out there, the ultimate kill shot that had forever destroyed their arcane reality. “He doesn’t want to accept anything else. We can’t be together, Marie. Perhaps in another life, but for now…”

“I… I understand, Estelle.” The young woman by the name of Marie unfurled her legs and shakily climbed to her feet, brushing down her legs in the same fashion and lightly thumbing the royal ornate pendant which hung around her neck—a stark contrast to the ragged dress she adorned, which was covered in dust and mud. “I… I knew this couldn’t last, what with your royal status and me… me being nothing but a lowly farm girl. I… I just wanted to hold onto the hope that maybe someday, somehow…”

“Somewhere,” Estelle spoke suddenly, cutting through the terse silence and extending an arm to pull Marie into an embrace, her eyelids withering as she blinked away the sharp tears that were threatening to spill. “You forgot the possibility of somewhere. Maybe not right now, or even in this life… but /somewhere/, things will be different.”