Ashetta
burning glances turning heads
I slip in quiet, like mist under a door.The music curls through the trees ahead—too bright, too open. Ribbons flutter in the breeze, paper ghosts dancing like they don’t know they’re dead. Lanterns sway in the boughs, golden and warm. I keep to the edges, letting the darker paths of Ludo’s Woods cradle my steps. They’re the only parts of this place that feel like mine.
Already I’ve seen her—Theea, radiant and unguarded, laughing with one person I don’t recognize and Remi and Ronin’s daughter. She’s in good company. That’s what matters. I don’t need to interrupt, to haunt the edges of her joy like some shadow too stubborn to fade. This is her night to have fun with friends, not me. It’s her life. I don’t belong in it like I used to, and I’m not about to make this moment about me.
So I move along the edge of the clearing, unseen if I’m lucky. Unacknowledged if I’m not. The gown shifts around my legs and arms like trailing smoke, midnight blue streaked with gold, the ends frayed into ribbons that whisper as I walk, flashing leg with every step—knives peeking out in a flash.
Once I loved events like this. Any chance to dress up and show off.
I reach the drink table and immediately grab two of the small glasses near the edge—don’t ask what they are, I don’t care. I down the first one in a single breath, and the second just as fast. The burn is welcome. It gives me something to hold on to. My hands shake less with a weight in them, so I take a mug of cider next and hold it like a tether, fingers curled around it as if it might anchor me to this place.
The mask helps. It lets me pretend. Sharp and sleek, dark midnight blue as the sky overhead with gold wisps along its wolf-shape. It hides enough—but not everything. I know what I look like. I know how I carry myself, how I look. Anyone who knows me will know me. I’m too short not to know, really.
I scan the crowd for Remi and Ronin. I don’t want to lean on them and use them as a crutch, not really.
But gods, yes I do.
Ashe didn't do SEs this season!
stop and stare at the sea of smiles around you
