An Impossible Evening Begins

It didn't take long for the two women to leave the brightly lit core of Blackwell City. Ashlynn may have only left the Blackwell Manor infrequently but she still lived in this city for more than twenty years before she left to marry Owain Lothian. In order to escape the crowds that packed the brightly lit festival, she led Nyrielle to a quiet stretch of docks used mostly by local fishermen. 

The air smelled of the briny water of the harbor, the mingled tar and wooden scents of the small ships, and an underlying fishy odor that clung to everything long after the day's catch had been delivered to the fishmongers of the city. 

In the relative quiet of the empty docks, they could hear the gentle lap of waves against weathered hulls and the creak of mooring ropes as the fishing boats shifted with the incoming tide. The distant sounds of the festival, music, and laughter carried on the sea breeze across the open water, seemed to belong to another world entirely.