***
Immediately after a light meal with Glynis, she walked to the fountain. Today Neste didn't look for Elen right away because she was early. She watched the water dance from Aer’s stone mouth and thought about Hoel. His temper was much hotter than his father’s. She hoped as Hoel matured he would learn tolerance and patience from Marc. Encouraging those traits would be her job, too. Lost in contemplation of her future with Hoel, Elen walked right up and startled her.
"Your mind is out past Merioneth, sailing on Cardigan Bay," Elen teased. She bounced on her toes as she talked, her smile as wide as the valley floor. Her coif had slipped off her head and hung down her back. Her black curls danced as she moved.
"You have news! Out with it!" Neste exclaimed.
"Oh, he is so handsome," Elen said, and her eyes drifted toward dreamy.
"I assume we're talking about Morgan. Did you perform the pairs dance with him today?"
Elen sat down and put both hands on Neste's arm. "It was wonderful! Two souls in unity..." She freed one hand to trace swoops and spirals in the air.
"I'm happy for you, fy cyfaill." Welsh seemed to add a note of sincerity to the declaration of friendship. Neste grabbed Elen's hand and squeezed it.
“Oh, I almost forgot!” Elen exclaimed. She held out a stem with a delicate white flower. “My proof that I haven’t killed the wild garlic yet.”
Neste laughed as she took the flower. She’d given Elen the bulb and helped her plant it two years ago when they became riders.
“You are such a dreamer you need something to ground you. Caring for a plant will do that,” Neste had told her.
“I’ll show you I can do it!” Elen had exclaimed. And she had. Every night, April through June, Elen brought her a flower when they met at the fountain. For the rest of the year, when the plant wasn’t blooming, Neste had to be content with verbal reports of the plant’s health.
Neste reached up and traced the flower along Aer’s stone leg. “A plant will ground an air person and give her balance.”
“Sounds like something your mother would say.”
“Iawn, it is,” Neste agreed. “She knows about air people and their dreams. She also knows about earth people and their gardens, and about water people and their mercurial nature. Everyone has those elements within them. A good life is about balancing them and not letting any one aspect take control.”
“Yes, Mum,” Elen teased. “But I like to dream of spending every minute in the air with my beloved.”
“The mare or the man?” Neste teased back. “Seriously, a plant is the perfect balance. It needs air, water, and earth to create beauty. It’s amazing we aren’t all worshiping plants!”
Elen laughed until she gasped for breath. Neste joined her. Laughter was good medicine. It took away all the stress of competition, her mother’s ill health, Hoel’s moods. Nothing was better medicine than laughing with a friend.