Long Story | Romance Fantasy | Prussian Blue Sky -1-

Lights were lit in the taverns of the small port town, and smoke from the preparations for the evening meal rose from the chimneys of the houses.
When the Father Sun God, Heus, who pours boundless love upon the sea, the earth, and all living things, withdrew with his retinue of clouds, the one who appeared in his place was the Moon Goddess, Aire, adorned in a dress of Prussian blue scattered with shining stars.

In the town square, illuminated by moonlight, there were people hurrying home, young men chatting with bottles of ale in hand, and young couples whispering words of love.

Each spent their time in their own way, and the scene was as it always was.

Of a pair of man and woman sitting side by side on a stone bench, the man suddenly had his gaze captured by the center of the square.
Noticing what had caught the man's gaze, the woman complained.

A dress of layered thin silk reaching down to the feet.
Hair and face covered by a thin veil.

The arms extending from the loose sleeves and the ankles peeking out from the hem were well-defined, and the skin was whiter than the pearls of the earth, Alberum.
The golden hair, as if spun from light, was lustrous, and the face, half-covered by the thin veil, looked quite refined even from a distance.

"That there is a child of the Moon Goddess, Aire."

The woman, who was about to pinch the cheek of the man who had gulped audibly, stopped her hand at the sound of a flute drifting from somewhere.

The sound, which resonated with a gentle, calm tone while harboring a faint sorrow, seemed to cleanse the heart just by listening to it.

The woman began to dance to the sound of the flute, which had been carried on the damp wind from the sea.

Her hair, lustrous like silk thread, swayed, scattering grains of light as it caught the white moonlight.
Her layered thin silk robes fluttered, revealing skin as translucent as white porcelain.
Her extended limbs moved flexibly and sometimes powerfully in time with the music.

The woman who had intended to reprimand the man forgot what she was about to do.
Nay, perhaps almost everyone present had forgotten to breathe.

A man who had been hurrying to a house where his family waited stopped and stood there, dumbfounded.
The young men who had been cursing with bottles of ale in hand forgot even to swallow the beer they held in their mouths.

Her eyes, like jewels visible through the thin veil, seemed to reflect nothing of the world, yet the occasional intentional sidelong glance and the parting of her pale red lips bewitched and entranced those who watched.

It was as if time had stopped only in that place.

The only sounds echoing in the crowd that had formed before anyone knew it were the clear sound of the flute, the ringing of the glass bells sewn onto the dancer's robes, and the faint sound of rustling fabric.

Even when the music ended and the dancer knelt and bowed gracefully, no one could move, as if they had been paralyzed.

The wind spirits, Aer, passed through, fluttering the dancer's thin silk robes.

On the silent street, time began to move again when one man started clapping like a madman, and thunderous applause and whistles rang out into the night sky.

The dancer turned and knelt repeatedly to respond to the people's praise.

In the night of the small port town, the applause and whistles did not stop for a long time.

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