12-29-2017, 02:37 AM
(This post was last modified: 12-29-2017, 12:34 PM by King Ghidorah.)
Even though she rarely slept, Isolda van Harnburg didn't like to go out after dark. It was an old aversion, one that she'd carried with her from an old country in a dying world, but even now the shadows made her uneasy - which was why even at midnight her garden was full of light.
The high walls of the ballroom-sized enclosure, open to the sky and lacking doors or windows, were curtained top-to-bottom with a thick overgrowth of luminescent ivy which glowed a harsh and penetrating shade of sapphire-blue after sunset. Among the flowerbeds alabaster lilies and golden crocuses shone soft white and creamy orange in the moonlight, their petals gleaming with subtle halos. Patches of thimble-cap mushrooms cast their weird off-yellow glow across their little domains of rich black soil, and vast carpets of soft red moss gave off brilliant violet hues. Even the little ornamental pond which decorated the center of the grounds was a source of light, enormous colonies of bottom-dwelling iridescent algae creating a very slightly greener shade of blue than the ivy on the outer walls and transforming the tiny silver fish that lived among them into darting nodes of glinting brilliance; The underwater aurora was so strong that its rays were visible even against the spectral symphony of the rest of the garden, dancing above the surface of the placid, clear water. An exotic willow tree, gleaming from within in tones of lustrous silver, overhung the pool's mossy banks.
Only the winding, rust-red gravel paths which meandered across the grounds offered no contribution to the koleidoscopic explosion of warm, vital color. Within its eccentrically-lit walls a person could believe that the entire night-time world was composed nigh-exclusively of blended shades of living light.
This was Isolda's favorite place. It was separate from her uncle's paltry gardens. Nobody else could come here - the outer walls were twice as high as a man, abutting an easterly section of the castle's outer fortifications, made of thick granite blocks and sealed tight save for the occasional storm-drain too narrow for even a squirrel. Tending her garden, shrouded from the world by curtains of impenetrable blue ivy, she could believe that all her wars were over, and that the strangely hollow stars overhead really meant her no harm; Sometimes, fertilizing the mosses or sitting under the willow tree and watching the fish, she was even able to forget about the ghosts.
The high walls of the ballroom-sized enclosure, open to the sky and lacking doors or windows, were curtained top-to-bottom with a thick overgrowth of luminescent ivy which glowed a harsh and penetrating shade of sapphire-blue after sunset. Among the flowerbeds alabaster lilies and golden crocuses shone soft white and creamy orange in the moonlight, their petals gleaming with subtle halos. Patches of thimble-cap mushrooms cast their weird off-yellow glow across their little domains of rich black soil, and vast carpets of soft red moss gave off brilliant violet hues. Even the little ornamental pond which decorated the center of the grounds was a source of light, enormous colonies of bottom-dwelling iridescent algae creating a very slightly greener shade of blue than the ivy on the outer walls and transforming the tiny silver fish that lived among them into darting nodes of glinting brilliance; The underwater aurora was so strong that its rays were visible even against the spectral symphony of the rest of the garden, dancing above the surface of the placid, clear water. An exotic willow tree, gleaming from within in tones of lustrous silver, overhung the pool's mossy banks.
Only the winding, rust-red gravel paths which meandered across the grounds offered no contribution to the koleidoscopic explosion of warm, vital color. Within its eccentrically-lit walls a person could believe that the entire night-time world was composed nigh-exclusively of blended shades of living light.
This was Isolda's favorite place. It was separate from her uncle's paltry gardens. Nobody else could come here - the outer walls were twice as high as a man, abutting an easterly section of the castle's outer fortifications, made of thick granite blocks and sealed tight save for the occasional storm-drain too narrow for even a squirrel. Tending her garden, shrouded from the world by curtains of impenetrable blue ivy, she could believe that all her wars were over, and that the strangely hollow stars overhead really meant her no harm; Sometimes, fertilizing the mosses or sitting under the willow tree and watching the fish, she was even able to forget about the ghosts.