waning gibbous

I was quite drunk the first time I met Nevena. I wasn't expecting to be forced to entertain anyone important that night but, well, the heiress of the Spire can do what she pleases. I was on the rooftop, moongazing, partly because too much drink makes me even less social than usual, partly because I like the moon, partly because I was just in a bad mood.

It wasn't until much later that I'd realize who she was--she was just another aristocrat who heard me sing and wanted to meet me; some hoped they could take me to bed, some just wanted to be able to say they'd met the theatre's rising star, and some presumably genuinely thought I'd be interesting. And normally I was--it's a professional skill--but normally I had warning.

"Waning gibbous," she said, and I just made an affirmative noise. She sat down next to me. "It's lovely, isn't it?"

I said nothing. If she had something to say, she'd get around to it eventually. But I did hand her the mostly-empty bottle of wine I'd brought up here, and was rewarded with a laugh. "Drinking in silence it is."

And we did--or rather, she did. I'd already stopped for the night. But the moon was lovely, and despite everything having someone to simply sit with me and watch did make me feel a little better. "It is lovely," I said at last.

"It always feels like a shame, watching the moon shrink away to nothing," she said.

"I doubt there'd be many songs and poems about the moon if it was just full all the time," I said. "It'd be like a boring sun."

She laughed again. "You're right, of course."

The silence settled over us once again; already I felt more comfortable with her, despite myself. This time neither of us broke it until the cool night air set me to shivering. And I couldn't help but smile as she handed me back the empty bottle. "Sorry for drinking your wine. I'll find a way to make it up to you." Then she was gone, and I went back inside and made my apologies to the other members of our little troupe and made my way back to my sad little tenement.

I wondered who she was, what she'd wanted. She was a strange companion but, surprisingly, not an unwelcome one; and I wondered if, wherever she was, she, too, was still looking at the waning moon.