BOUND BY TANGLED FATES

Nektar, the great city with the finest storytellers ever seen, situated between two inactive volcano mountains. Bustling with even more life as the Festival of Tales commenced. The festival came once in five years, and when it did, the city bloomed. Plants looked more luscious and vibrant, sales boomed and visitors came from beyond all neighboring boundaries.

Flags stitched with ancestral names softly danced along with the wind, every lineage duly represented. Painted silk hung from every rooftop, their vibrant colors splashing the streets and Nektar in general with flavor. Excited children ran along the streets, crafted souvenirs on their wrists and necks, unconsciously adding to the somewhat synchronized chaos.

And at the very heart of it all, on the sacred stone, stood Aurenya Virell, daughter of the Virell, Chief Storyteller, the very best across over six lands and twelve generations. Her pale, almost translucent skin shimmered faintly under the veil of her ceremonial robe. It was often reiterated, like a tale, that the Virell family bloodline was kissed by the deities of memory and air, their bloodline so pure and delicate, it barely clung to the world around them. Aurenya moved like a vision, each footstep soft and calculated.

The nobility council, the union to which nobles as well as Aurenya's family belonged, watched as she approached the sacred stone, where the year's best tale would be told. Onlookers looked on.

Her robe was white with flecks of silver thread, the traditional insignia of a first tier or highly revered storyteller. Its hem bore the signature of twelve generations, each ancestor and their legacies immortalized. When she spoke, the hem would pulse faintly in shrill, silver light in rhythm with her words, for not just their legacies but also truth brought life to the robe.

She stood at the center, and the crowd hushed up, silence more deafening than the crashing of water against the shore.

Nothing could prepare Nektar for what was coming.

The sound was subtle at first, slowly building up amongst the crowd. Soon it grew to a burst of surprise and then a collective gasp penetrating the silence.

Aurenya turned sharply, her fingers stopping mid air, just before her lips parted, seconds away from delivering.

Someone had stumbled into the sacred space. A man.

He wasn't noble. That much was glaringly obvious. He bore no ceremonial robe, his outfit faded, bleeding into a shade of indigo patched with brownish undertones. He looked scrawny and his hands were bare, rough and clammy.

Greater than the sin of his existence was the greater sin, unforgivable; he was touching her.

His hand had gripped her waist, likely to catch himself from falling but it didn't matter. The crowd reacted with horror, their faces contorted into pure displeasure, their gasps now shrieks. Aurenya didn't move at first, baffled beyond measure.

His eyes met hers and she noted that they were not like the dull browns or misty grays of nobility. They were a shocking blue, like the sky. His face graced by a mess of tight, dark curls and dark skin, almost mirroring his clothes. He looked completely out of place.

"I-I didn't mean to..." the man stammered, releasing her as if her skin charred his. "The crowd pushed, I was trying to...."

"You touched me," Aurenya cut him, her voice quiet but sharp. "In the sacred square."

He backed away a step. "I swear I didn't know. I was trying to deliver-"

Guards surged forward as if on cue, surrounding him immediately. The man raised his arms in surrender, but not fast enough.

"No blood!" She snapped and the guards paused. The order had come from her, and she was Virell afterall, and so they obeyed.

"Who are you?" She demanded, stepping forward, her voice icy and sharp. "What name gives you the right to enter this square?"

He looked at her with such raw bewilderment, confusion etched on his physique that it almost felt like mockery. "I...I'm Kaelen," he said slowly, blinking. "A tailor. No" He shook his head. "A robe maker" His voice was quieter now.

Laughter roared across the public like thunder. A robe maker in this space?

"Where's your sigil?" one barked.

"Who was your sponsor?" another spat.

Kaelen turned to them, his back visibly tensed. "I don't have either," he said, still too calm, fueling their agitation the more. "I was hired to bring a repaired robe to the Hall. A woman said...she said I could bring it straight to her sponsor...."

"And you believed her?" Aurenya asked icily. "You walked into this circle, with that robe, and thought the gods would nod in agreement?"

Kaelen glanced down at his own attire, a huge contrast to hers. Woven with strange interlacing threads, it was not of any modern class. It had a soul about it, but none of the aristocratic symbols, obviously.

Aurenya took a breath. A wrong breath.

His scent hit her. He smelt like dried wood, and something older, as far as her olfactory receptors took her. Something as old as time. Something about him intrigued her and it wasn't just the touch or even his physical appearance. It was the robe. The thread of his robe. It had shimmered when it brushed hers. Before her very eyes.

That shouldn't have been possible.

"You will be taken into custody," she said, masking her feelings. "For violating sacred boundaries, and for contact."

Kaelen didn't protest. He lifted his chin, but his eyes burned with something unsaid.

As the guards dragged him away, Aurenya turned back to the crowd. She lifted her hands and continued to speak.

"Forgive the delay," she said, voice clear and collected, a curt fake smile on her face. "A tale waits to be told."

But even as the tales rolled off her tongue, and her voice rang through the square, her mind kept drifting to the roughness of that stranger's grip, and the shimmer that emanated between their robes.

Kaelen sat in the holding cell beneath the hall. His wrists were untied respecting her wishes for 'no blood' and that included rope. A heavy chain however tied whatever means of escape he could afford.

He stared at the walls, then at his robe.

That flicker. That flash when her robe met his. He hadn't imagined it. He had only ever heard of it in tales. Robes that reacted to one another. Threads that recognized one another.

But that was supposed to be fiction, mere tales that didn't affect real life.

He rubbed his thumb over its hem. Who was she, really? That woman with pale skin and lightning in her voice?

And why had something in his very core, something deep and ancient, ached the moment her robe touched his?

He wasn't aware at the present, but that moment was no accident. There were no accidents in fate. It was the first knot in a thread that stretched, detanglimg and unfolding several years and generations back.