They both ate and left the rather boisterous inn to continue their journey. They were rather lucky the inn sold horses. After reaching to a joint conclusion, they bought two horses and decided to fare through the rest of the journey on them.
They soon reached a wide parry, grass and trees as far as one could see, with colorful wildflowers in between. Elora looked at the beautiful sun, orange and red. Today it looked even more glorious, setting on the wide stretch of greenery. She looked enchanted and to make it even more perfect, the horse galloping beside Her's, Raymond holding the reins, his golden hair and emerald eyes resonating with the sun's gleam. Elora was really happy back then or now. In her dark life. He had always been the light. Even if the light was sometimes dim, it was still there. He didn't paint an empty canvas, but he surely added colors to that gray painting hanging on a wall ignored by passersby.
Night turned to day and day into night, days passed. As they got to know each other more. The more they knew, the harder they fell. Elora, who was grateful to Raymond, her savior, her first love now flowed with not just gratitude, with a small desire, a desire that the one who filled her world with life. For him to look back at her, of course she hadn't forgotten her resolve. It's OK if he didn't love her back, if his happiness were to be somewhere else, someone that's not her, she would simply try to make his life easier, to do the same for him as he had done for her. She would look after him and help him until he found his happiness. Then she would live the life she longed for. One with peace, a quiet place with no reason to shed tears. If by some stroke of luck, he were to be included in that life, she would gladly welcome him.
Raymond, too, had his own thoughts filled up by Elora. The days he had spent with her made her a great companion, but he knew the difference between a friend and lover. If he hadn't fallen for her, she would have been a priceless friend, but now he could only think of her as someone more. He had, for all she was, and all of the little things that she did or said only made him fall in love with her again and again and came moments that made him want to cross the line, testing his senses of reason to the very last. He had gone high and low, but he couldn't reject the desires within him. But he knew that
only time would tell if he was allowed to touch the very moon that multiple stars in the sky were chasing. Or would she be the sand that slipped out of his hands?