#verse:helladir

• They’re both adults in this, Elaith is a rising star in the technology market, trying to make a name for himself and mostly succeeding. He loves to go to the coffee shop he once worked as a barista and just stay there with his notebook, he even “has” a table. One day, Eli spots a new costumer, one he has never seen before: a dark haired, blue eyed woman in an expensive tailleur, as bitter as she’s pretty. She takes her drink and sits in a corner with her notebook, where a regular costumer once sat before he simply vanished some months back. 

•  She comes again the next day, and the day after that, and the whole week after, always gloomy. Elaith is way too interested, way too curious about this beautiful stranger and decides that, what the hell, he wants to know more about her. The baristas are all too eager to tell him about their mysterious new regular.

• Her name is Rosalyn and she drinks extra sweet hot chocolate every single day. The irony is not lost on Elaith.

• Rosalyn is tired, and sad, and angry. Her father is dead, her best friends are on the other side of the world, she’s drowning under the pressure of being Allyra Casengrim’s only granddaughter. Her only escape from the hell that is work is isolating herself in the coffee shop across the street with her notebook, at the same table her father used to sit. Allyra doesn’t like it, but Rose does her work, so she says nothing.

• There’s a man in front of her and he has amber eyes (who the hell has amber eyes?) and a disarmingly charming smile. He’s holding a hot chocolate for her (how the hell does he know what she drinks? no, never mind, the barista’s face says it all). And she’s so dumbstruck by the whole situation that she can only look at him and blink.  

• Eli finds it hilarious and adorable that she has no idea on how to deal with the whole situation. The surprise doesn’t last long: the walls return, her eyes narrow, and her whole expression is guarded. Still, there’s just something about her that calls to him, and Elaith was never one to quit so easily. He smiles and does what he does best: talk. 

• Elaith is too confident, too audacious, too clever for his own good, but when was the last time Rosalyn had had an engaging conversation? When was the last time someone seemed interested in what she (and not Allyra’s granddaughter) had to say?  When was the last time someone had looked at her with something other than pity? When she leaves it’s dark and she feels more alive than she has in a long while.