![]() So......I am shocked. Delighted. Bemused. And baffled. I wasn't feeling LofM's latest start (what else is new) and I could feel that the plot & premise was almost, but not quite, right....so i went scrolling through my hundreds of pages of drafts and snippets and scenes and-- I have some good stuff here! Ten years of working on this wip has left me with some fantastic fragments that I can cobble together and polish into something I'm really, really excited to write. I'm so glad I rarely deleted anything! I just now have to hunt through everything I have for what I want to try and patchwork into one single draft. But ah! this is so fun! and makes me feel so much better about the insidious voice in my head deriding me for having worked on this wip for 10+ years with nothing but pieces to show for it. The scene below is inspired by my trip to the Grand Mosque of Paris years ago (see above photo, which I took!) and also Canada’s lushness, which is always such a surprise every spring and summer after long, grey winters. Halah opens a latticed door onto a riot of greenery and floral scent. Inhaling slowly, eyes drifting shut to savour the moment, she smiles and pads down three steps into the square enclosed by marble pillars and scalloped arches, seeming to hardly contain the burst of verdant greenery within. She exhales all her dejection and drags her fingertips over the dew-speckled petals of a nearby rose bush’s blooms, listening to the trickle and burble of the fountains interspersed throughout.
She is certain that some corner of Paradise looks like this riad. Souda, the region she hails from, is dry and arid, so near to the desert country of Numan as it is. But Qahtan is humid and verdant, its abounding greenery exhaling its wetness into the air, where it hangs thick and clinging, a morass she must swim through as much as walk. The heat in Qahtan is wearying in a way she never found it at home, but she’s adapting to it, albeit slowly. Still, she wouldn’t give it up for anything in the world, because a consequence of all this heat are the lush gardens—like the one she steps into now. Halah toes off her slippers, leaving them to the side of the mosaic-tiled path and treading across thick, soft grass, the hem of her skirts dampening with dew as she walks. Flowers scent the air with their perfume, the white, star-like blossoms of the jasmine vines winding around the pillars, the diaphanous blossoms of the purple nupur trees, and the lush pink roses native to Qahtan, attracting small white butterflies and sleepy bees to their nectar. Warblers flit to and fro between frond and tree limb, chattering cheerily to each other. She spots a pair of bright green parakeets bathing in the fountains, wings flicking droplets into the air that shine like diamonds in the sun. In the midst of the garden, two crossing palm trees elegantly arch over a pavilion of white, latticed wood and sheer drapery. [Halah] hears quiet talking before she rounds a bend and finds the queen of Qahtan and Raoul’s sister perusing their own letters, each much thicker than her own was. Halah falters but it’s too late. The queen looks up and a smile brightens her lovely face. Aliyah looks around too, and both women beckon her over with calls of welcome.
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