12-21-2025, 05:08 PM
The glimmer around the other woman settled softly, like embers being banked instead of fed. Her desire for the journal loosened and changed direction, the motes around her chest drifting outward and thinning, no longer clustered around the blue cover but warming instead toward Seren herself. It wasn’t anything which sharpened or sparked unnaturally, just a gentle choosing.
She smiled a little and closed her fingers properly around the journal, grounding herself in its weight. The vendor’s small hope flickered brighter in her peripheral – a sale now assured – but Seren’s attention stayed with the woman in front of her.
“Maybe you’re right,” she said.
She slipped the journal back toward herself, then finally met the woman’s eyes fully. Up close, the warmth she’d sensed translated easily: open expression, nerves threaded with courage, attraction present but self-contained. Seren noted it with the same careful respect she always did – acknowledging without amplifying, seeing without pulling.
“Seren,” she replied, her smile a little more open now, still careful but unmistakably genuine. Her confidence was easy, as well it might be given the unfair advantage she had of certainty. For a beat she stayed there, letting the moment exist without rushing it, a small act of defiance against the way things usually escalated around her. Snow brushed against her coat sleeve. Somewhere nearby someone laughed. The market around them breathed.
Then, lightly, as if testing the shape of the interaction rather than steering it, she added, “Were you looking for something specific, Casey? Or just… seeing what turns up?” It wasn’t a flirtation, exactly, but it was an invitation – one carefully offered and easily withdrawn if the gold began to shift into something sharper. She tapped the stall with a finger, indicating the arrangement of journals. She wouldn’t ask outright what it was for, such things were often personal.
She smiled a little and closed her fingers properly around the journal, grounding herself in its weight. The vendor’s small hope flickered brighter in her peripheral – a sale now assured – but Seren’s attention stayed with the woman in front of her.
“Maybe you’re right,” she said.
She slipped the journal back toward herself, then finally met the woman’s eyes fully. Up close, the warmth she’d sensed translated easily: open expression, nerves threaded with courage, attraction present but self-contained. Seren noted it with the same careful respect she always did – acknowledging without amplifying, seeing without pulling.
“Seren,” she replied, her smile a little more open now, still careful but unmistakably genuine. Her confidence was easy, as well it might be given the unfair advantage she had of certainty. For a beat she stayed there, letting the moment exist without rushing it, a small act of defiance against the way things usually escalated around her. Snow brushed against her coat sleeve. Somewhere nearby someone laughed. The market around them breathed.
Then, lightly, as if testing the shape of the interaction rather than steering it, she added, “Were you looking for something specific, Casey? Or just… seeing what turns up?” It wasn’t a flirtation, exactly, but it was an invitation – one carefully offered and easily withdrawn if the gold began to shift into something sharper. She tapped the stall with a finger, indicating the arrangement of journals. She wouldn’t ask outright what it was for, such things were often personal.
![[Image: seren-lilith-.jpg]](https://thefirstage.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/seren-lilith-.jpg)