The year passed like shifting leaves, each season adding a new layer to the tapestry of their lives.
Lytavis's bow grew surer with every hunt. Where once her arrows clattered harmlessly into walls, now they sang true—clean strikes, swift and merciful. She honored every fallen creature the same way, kneeling, bowing her head, whispering thanks. Tyrande stood beside her each time, lending a prayer to Elune in harmony with her friend's promise.
Tyrande herself grew taller, her features sharpening into grace, her voice steadying in prayer. The temple tutors praised her devotion, but in quiet moments she confessed to Lytavis that her heart found its truest worship not in marble halls, but beneath the open sky, where prayers rose with laughter and the rustle of wings.
The Ariakan villa never stopped humming with life. Animals seemed drawn there as if by unseen threads: owls with broken wings, lynx kits tangled in thorns, even once a stag whose antlers were bloodied by cruel traps. Lytavis mended them all, her hands steady, her poultices strong, her compassion boundless. Tyrande helped as best she could—grinding herbs, soothing frightened paws, whispering soft temple hymns.
Skye grew too, from a mischievous fledgling into a proud raven with feathers glossy as midnight. She shadowed them always—perched on Lytavis's shoulder, stealing Tyrande's ribbons, and once even flying straight through temple doors to make off with a ceremonial candle. Lucien had to retrieve it himself, enduring the Sisters' pursed disapproval. Skye scolded him loudly the entire way home.
Ginger, older now, claimed the hearth rug as her kingdom but still padded faithfully at Lytavis's side whenever she went into the woods. Between fox and raven, earth and sky, she was never without her shadows.
Yet if the forest and the temple were her outer classrooms, the hearth and Crysta's satchel were her inner ones.
Crysta began to trust her with more:
She showed her how to time a mother's breath with her pain.How to warm oil with steady hands, rubbing it into weary backs.How to listen not only to the child's cry when it came, but to the mother's silence when it did not.How to speak gently, so that the words themselves became medicine.
There were days she returned home flushed with joy, recounting a child's first cry, or the relief on a mother's face when the babe latched. There were other nights she came home weary, or pale, needing Zoya's arms and quiet reassurance before she could sleep. But always, she returned eager to go again.
The seasons marked their growth in quiet rituals.
In summer, they chased fireflies across the garden until Zoya called them in, hair wild, feet dusty, palms glowing faintly where Lytavis tried to hold the tiny lights.In autumn, they helped with harvest, arms full of gourds and herbs, laughing as Skye stole seeds from the drying racks.In winter, they sprawled before the hearth with steaming mugs of spiced milk, Ginger curled warm at their feet, telling stories until their eyes drooped.In spring, they climbed rooftops and trees, their voices carrying with the scent of blossoms, secrets traded in hushed tones as the ley-lines thrummed beneath.
Of course, friendship was not all sweetness. Once Tyrande grew so furious because a boy liked Lytavis and not her, that she refused to speak for two whole days. Lytavis responded by leaving small offerings—a honeycake tucked under her blanket, a fresh ribbon slipped into her prayer book—until Tyrande's stubbornness cracked into giggles.
Community, too, began to notice them. Neighbors called them "the girls from the villa," temple novices whispered about Tyrande's rising devotion, and hunters began to nod respectfully when Lytavis passed, her bow slung across her back.
And as they crossed from girlhood into young womanhood, their games gave way to longer talks. They lay stretched out beneath the stars on the villa roof, voices hushed as if the heavens themselves might lean closer to listen.
"I hope," Tyrande whispered once, her head pillowed on her arms, "to meet a kind man. Gentle. Someone who understands what it means to live a life of service—that my path will never be only my own."
Lytavis turned her head, blue eyes shining in the starlight. "Then you'll find him. Elune wouldn't let someone like you go without that."
Tyrande laughed softly. "And you?"
Lytavis hesitated, then rolled onto her back, gazing up at the streaks of light across the night sky. "I hope for someone intelligent. Someone who can keep up with me—who doesn't just think about battles or glory. I want children. A family. A life that keeps growing."
From the doorway below, Zoya overheard and smiled faintly, pride and worry mingling in her heart. Lucien only muttered, "She'll outpace them all," before turning back to his ink-stained notes.
On the roof, Tyrande reached over and squeezed her friend's hand. "Then you'll find him. Because you're you."
The stars whispered above, the ley-lines thrummed below, and for a while they lay in silence, each wrapped in dreams too fragile, too bright, to share with anyone else.
For even as the seasons turned and the world grew more complicated, one truth remained unshaken: they had been bound together since the first cry of childhood, and nothing—not time, not fate—could unweave them. Together, they grew: not apart, but ever closer, like two threads twined tighter with each passing year.
Notes in the Margin - Lucien Ariakan
Seasons pass, and still my daughter's hands find their way to the wounded and the weary. She learns her letters from me, her herbs from her mother, her reverence from the bow, and her mercy from Crysta.
She speaks of children often—her own, someday, as though it is not enough to mend what is before her, she must also dream of what will be. I find myself smiling at that. It is both naïve and utterly true to her nature.
She is no longer only our Little Star. She is becoming the thread that binds together forest and hearth, temple and villa, prayer and poultice. I can only watch, pen in hand, as she grows brighter, more herself, with every turning year.