The stranger/ Flowering broom

Golden was her hair, pure gold like the flowering broom. 

White was her skin, whiter than hawthorn flowers on May day.

Red were her lips, blood-red like hawthorn berries, and bittersweet was her kiss, like sea-bucktorn honey. 

Fragrant was her skin,  like the first breeze of a newborn spring, full of hope and blossoming love.

Simply she dressed, and quiet was her life in a little house by the forest. Spirits came to sing at nights, forest folk came by when the leaves withered, to bring her spices and tales from far beyond.  

Dreams she spun into yarn, threads the color of skies at night, grasses by sunset, threads as fine as silken petals of mountain flowers, threads the color of honey, hope and happiness. 

Woods gave her fruit and roots, and colors for winter clothes, owls gifted her feathers for cloaks, wild rabbits and foxes brought her berries. 

Wild honey and thyme,  dandelion wine, rosebud oil...

Milk, peppermint,  daffodils and those strange azure blue flowers they call winter's kiss.

Millions of scents and fragrances lingered in the air, and any travelling folk was glad to sell her wool or linen in exchange for the things she made.

Time went on, and happy she was in her little house by the wood, until a stranger came.  Dark was his glance, pale was his skin, sternly he watched her. 

She welcomed him, and gave him an ointment for his aching back, she cured his hands, callused and bruised. She sang to him, and he slept like a babe for the first time in years. 

Simply she lived, and his crimson cloak didn't frighten her. Were she different , she'd run as soon as she saw him, but she didn't. 

He saw no threat in her, he inspected her ointments and balms, and found no fault in them being no stranger to herbal medicine himself. Yet...

Wild roses and hawthorn, 

Honey and thyme 

Sea buckthorn and broom...

The fragrance remained. She was gone.

He left by the nightfall,  taking her scarf and ointments with him. He felt bitter and he knew his nightmares would return.

Her voice followed him to the gates of Toledo.

Her fragrance haunted him years after.

When he could no longer bear it, he found a small bottle amongst the things he took from her house that night. The label was gone, the scent so faint he couldn't place it. 

The taste was...strange,  yet he swallowed it all. 

Hemlock is a swift killer, he remembered. 

She smiled at him from his memories. 

He was no more.