Midnight's Child: Elena Balakov

[Boots]

Physical Description (Same as IG Description:)

Height: 5'1

A curvaceous and shapely woman with dusky caramel coloured skin that barely stands above 5’,
and walks with a fluid sway to her hips. Her slightly husky voice holds an alluringly mellifluous
creole accent, a playful mixture of many different places.

Ella has deeply expressive, almost feline features; which she accents with the faintest touches of
gold shimmer painted up gracefully high cheekbones and beneath sculpted, arching dark brows.
Her full lips hold a dark red paint, and lines of kohl flick around brightly keen and slightly slanted,
almond shaped emerald green eyes.

Her hair is worn loose, a silken sheet of thick and glossy naturally straight hair; a rich, dark velvety
black that hangs around her hips and flops playfully over one eye. A pair of small white and black
feathers are weaved into a single braid just beneath her left ear. Up close, it smells faintly of roses.

Her manner of dress borders on gaudy with the plethora of glittering gold jewellery worn on her
person. On a brown leather belt around her hips hang several pouches of herbs and plants, small
bottles and bundled up bandages, other such items one would see on a wandering healer. The
rest of the belt houses several hanging charms in the form of coins, feathers, and the like.

Several tattooed black images of tiny stars and moons in varying shapes sizes and phases trail up
her left shoulder, curling around to disappear behind her ear into her hair. Her temperament despite
being borderline audacious, is heavily guarded and sometimes wary. She can sometimes be seen
stumbling and becoming distracted, as if seeing something in front of her that is not really there.

[Boots]

[In Ella's belongings and never far from her hand is a small leather bound book,
which houses a large amount of plant clippings. The notes are hand written, and
the pictures painted carefully with watercolours.]

[Boots]

The bitterly crisp morning was heralded by a surprisingly pleasant cacophany
of different birdsongs. Their noisy chorus marked the arrival of autumn, which
had come with preternatural speed and seemed to paint the ground several
shades of gold and brown; almost all at once.

Narrowed green eyes, a keen shade of emerald, watched with muted curiosity
as the large oak that threw shade over the dark skinned girl of roughly fourteen
to whom they belonged; decided to shirk more of it's rotting burden and send
several smaller leaves spiralling into the cold air above her.

Elena had never been of the mind to stay in any one place for too long. But
something in the gentle whispers of the breeze that caressed her cheek and
tickled through her hair, told her to take a break; and so she did just that. It was
all too easy to forget herself in the serenity of the situation, despite the bitter
cold and the menacing reminder in the skies of the winter to come.



All too soon, the soft howling of the wind faded away into the strained notes
of a single fiddle player's song; with beautiful notes that spiraled much in the
same way as the autumn leaves did fall. A campfire roared with life at the center
of a gathering of others, older than she; with the same dusky tone to their skin
and glint of mischief in their eyes.

But, their eyes were dark, and their skin a shade darker than hers still. Elena had
never quite fit in with her people, despite being one of them. Her father had been
an outsider. One that in the years to come, Elena would finally meet.

A cluster of small, brightly dressed and grubby children crowded and pushed at
each other to watch the older men and women dance and twirl around the fire to
the croon of the fiddle; who's player worked the battered instrument with a masterful
hand.

He, was Marko. A man who despite still being considered youthful by his peers;
was much older than the young Elena, who sat unhappily on the grass beside a
hunched over elderly woman on a pile of cushions. She wore a sour expression
on her thin brown lips that seemed perpetual, even to those who had not met her
before.

As he played the opening alone, soon others from their clan took up their various
instruments and began to play along. The men and women danced faster as the
musicians picked up their pace, the women spinning fiercely to send their bright
skirts flaring out around them in small explosions of red, blue and purple.

The man's bronze skin carried a sheen of sweat from performing that seemed to
make it glitter. His dark eyes were kind- and much to the girl's disappointment,
seemed to rest on her for most of the evening. After several attempts to distract
herself, Elena sat cross legged and shuffled, and re-shuffled a worn deck of hand-
painted cards. By now, she had almost made herself familiar with each of the
seventy five different images that spoke of all things that were and would be. She
was particularly fond o-

"That, is Marko."

Elena could feel herself cringing before it happened. Her grandmother leaned
down to the side, where she sat; and muttered as the others around the fire
paused at the end of his first song to bow to eachother. A young couple met at
the front of the campfire to share the second kiss of their new marriage. Everyone
seemed in high spirits, for it was a night of celebration.

Everyone except Elena.

"He looks a hundred."

The girl felt a faint rushing of air before a sharp sting bit her cheek at the snarky
comment. Elena rubbed at her reddening cheek with a scowl, but managed a half
smile for the man as he bowed to the rest of the clan, and picked his way through
them to the seated pair.

"Ella, my dear, I cannot wait to marry you. The Lady's light is brighter this night, just for your being here."

He was as charming as he looked. Perhaps, to other women. Elena felt herself recoil
from his hand naturally, as it reached to grasp hers and lift it to his lips where her
fingers grazed a few beads of sweat that turned her stomach unpleasantly. She lifted
her green eyes to his dark gaze, and her stomach sank even further.

This man was a stranger to her.



Elena awoke with a start that sent a few gathered golden leaves from her person,
and pushed herself to her feet; lifting her eyes to the skies above. The sun was high,
and though she was glad for the faint warmth it brought, she knew she had tarried
for too long. The city of Calaunt lay a few hours ahead of her, and if she hurried,
she knew she would make it before nightfall.

Collecting what few possessions she still had, the young Gur woman set a brisk
pace for the shadow in the distance with her hands tucked securely into the
thick red scarf wrapped around her neck and shoulders that still somehow smelled
of her mother's perfume; setting the leaves that covered the dirt road afloat into a
gust of wind that passed behind her and took with it the memory of her dream.