Embers of the Night
A gentle sound of excited elevated chatter seeped out across the surrounding meadows from between the lush green leaves of the great forest oak trees that lined the clearing. Bright twinkling golden orbs of fiery light blinked as they cast their merry glow upon the thick grass that grew around with patches of cheerfully coloured wild flora. There were deeply entrenched marks where the lush grass had been disrupted in growth by the wheels of heavy caravans had been dragged along by strong horses, which had too left their own living dents in the earth.
Large oaken caravans with small doors open in the dewy twilight warmth and deeply pigmented drapes fluttering like weary butterflies in the soft fragrant breeze. The little latticed windows glowed with the waxy luminance of a thousand candles, though only one had been lit. Old strong cart horses in shades of bay and grey drunk deeply from a large wooden rectangular trough a short distance from the caravans with ripping muscular necks reclining towards the ground. Their eyes twinkled as they drank.
People came and went from the caravans; moths to a flame. They talked happily, though tired from the show they had just given. Women in vibrant dresses with sequins and feathers in dark shades of cosmetics joined handsome young men in elaborate tailcoats and crimson top hats. They seemed to exist as one beating heart.
Central to the clearing, a large campfire glowed merrily, casting a great joyous warmth; a halo. Its bright burning embers hovered up into the night and danced; caught in an updraft. They would dance eternally.
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