Rising Sun Valley Dear Fellow Traveller

Once she might have felt one way or another about Louis’ words, a great, creeping sadness or otherwise an innate instinct to defend her family. Now, she only brushed her chin to her shoulder in a shallow shrug, absent of further feeling. 

“I think there are many ‘shames’. And I might be lost if I allowed them to consume me. She is not without faults. Neither is my father.” And neither am I. “ I love them anyway.”

Louis the romantic. Heat flared and she looked away from him with amused scrutiny, wondering if she’d miscalculated. She felt a familiar tightening of her spine. His were flattering words, like the sweet-nothings of her youth. And there were excitements and secrets in his voice. She knew so little but she didn’t want to know more.  She allowed her imagination to fill in the gaps, allowed her eagerness for the idea of who he could be to eclipse her fear. She was tired of being a rat caught in winter. She wanted to be once again the girl who surrendered to fanciful pretense only because it was fun to do so.

So she gave a playful smile to the boy seeking for El Dorado. “And do the storms blow to you many ladies?”