The sun filtered through the trees casting a verdent shadow speckled with blotches of light. The walk into Robur had been slow this morning, the rock riddled road slick from the prior nights rain. But everything was green, the leaves on the lower hanging tree limbs and bushes bright and clean, dust from prior travelers having been washed off in the downpour. The birds were busy and talkative, breakfast was easy to find when the worms crawled to the surface of the soaked soil. Calla enjoyed the quiet walk alone on days like this, especially when she could get an early start and avoid other travellers, especially those on horseback, whose heavy footsteps often splashed her with mud all the way up to her knees.
It wasn't like the clothes that she wore were extravagant, she only had the one good dress, but she was proud of it because she had sewn it herself. It was a sagey green color, fitted through her waist with a simple, flowing skirt down to her ankles. She had managed to barter with Sue the dressmaker for scraps of lavender silk that she pieced together to trim the cuffs of the small bell sleeves and the scooping neckline. The only chance she got to wear it was in to town, and she hated to arrive splattered.
She turned the final bend in the road before the giant Oak that served as the cornerstone of town came into view and stepped to the side of the road. She pulled out the tiny piece of mirror she had saved from the sight where a runaway carriage had wrecked near her home. She had a not so secret reason for wanting to stay clean and look her best today, Calla hoped to run into the Blacksmith's son, Xander.
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