The First Day of Spring Part 6

Trina danced with Aaron Gomez, and remembered. And the wind seemed too soft somehow, almost lifeless, with the air too sweet and cloying.

She wondered what a festival on the planet would be like.

Max, with Saari MacGregor, perhaps, laughing in the wind, running in the chill of evening along some riverbank.

I could have gone with him, she thought. I could have gone....

But then the music swirled faster about them, the pulse of it pounding in her ears, and Aaron swept her closer as they danced, spinning among the people and the laughter, out toward the terrace, toward the trees with leaves unstirring in the evening air. All was color and sound and scent, all blended, hypnotically perfect, something infinitely precious that she could never, never leave.

For it was summer on the world, and festival time again.