Malca doesn’t know that a mile below her, her father is winding along the same bends of the river, contemplating an existence that has only just been returned to him, too.
It’s a moment that it’s felt as though she’s waited years for, a moment that she’s envisioned inside her head again, and again, and again, during every lonely day that bled into a lonelier night — and she almost misses it. She’s thinking about him. She’s wondering how long she can outrun him, or if she even can. She’s flying hard, and fast, but she’s only a chess piece in the end and gods or kings will always do what they like with her. Blinded by the concept of escaping Forever Malca almost soars beyond the gnarled, weeping boughs of an old oak tree and the river bend that sang to her the first songs she’d ever heard — beyond her father, too. It’s only a fluke, or circumstance, or stars aligning, or fate, that she notices someone below at all; a gust of wind that sweeps the boughs of the ancient tree up in it’s frigid embrace that’s enough to catch her eyes.
She still doesn’t know that this moment is what it is.
When she lands at last it’s beneath the gently swaying boughs of that same ancient oak tree that she was born beside, parallel to that same, tight ‘s’ bend of the gradually curving river. Nostalgia floods her senses until all that she can feel, or think, or taste, or smell, or hear, or see belong to the memories of a simpler existence when the only things she ever needed or craved were her parents. Standing here, she can almost taste the sweet-milk on her tongue again. The thought makes her want to cry.
And she still doesn’t know.
Malca doesn’t see her father behind her, or hear the way that his breath catches in his throat when he realizes his discovery beside the riverbend. Pools of water gather round her feet and ankles from the purple lakewater that still beads and rolls off the lengths of her dark eyelashes, stored temporarily from the tiny rivulets streaming from her tangle of dark forelock, and it’s only in their reflection that she notices his presence at all.
“Malca,” he says, and all at once and without needing to see she knows it’s him — she’s dreamt his voice every night in her sleep. The seconds are stones, and they build bridges across the spaces between them until they are side by side, fire and water. She notices immediately that he’s up against that same cheek Elektrum had touched and there’s a piece of herself left instantly grateful that he is now the last one to have touched her there. The smell of him is something she’d thought she’d forgotten, but when she inhales he is the same as she’d left him; a tangle of sweat, wildflower, meadow grass, and the impalpable tinge of iron, or metal. Blood. She leans her small body against the warmth of his side and cannot recall a time she’s felt more peaceful, or safe. She could spend forever here, she thinks.
“I’ve lost count of the days.”
Malca swallows hard and wonders how long it had really been. She’d kept track at first, dutifully crafting jagged markers from tangled, lavender seaweed that she would pluck herself from the ocean floor. She should have drowned a hundred times over, but she kept going back and keeping tally. She had wanted to be able to tell them how long she had been out there on her own when they finally came to bring her home. She had wanted to brag about her independence, having not fully realized the gravity of her situation in Forever at the time.
She can’t remember when the hope fell away, only that it did.
She can’t remember when resilience became desperation, or when even that fell away into numbness.
She can’t remember when she stopped marking, or screaming, or begging — only that she did. If she had known about the constellations it might have helped.
“So much has happened. I’ve missed you so much.”
Malca doesn’t tell him that she’s missed him too, but the way that her slight body dissolves against his lightest touch will tell him everything that words won’t. Of course she’s missed him — she misses him still; she misses every second of every hour of every day that she has endured without him.
She misses every piece of time they both lost to Forever.
She wants to let him know about the seaweed. She wants to tell him about every lonely night she curled into the long, lilac grass and dreamt of their faces. She wants to explain how she never meant to leave, but the words are smoke on her tongue and when she moves to speak they drift out between the gentle parting of her lips and lose themselves into the air. “I’m sorry,” is all that she manages, and the syllables of those two words alone are tangled enough that they are nearly beyond recognition, sitting heavy in her mouth near the back of her throat where they threaten to choke her.
Can sorrow truly kill you?
And she is sorry — for his worry, for the days he has lost count of, for all that has happened in her absence.
Most of all she’s sorry for the twilight.
“Please, don’t leave me again,” she asks him, pleading as she finds her way back from numbness to desperation.
“Please.”
@[vulgaris]
It’s a moment that it’s felt as though she’s waited years for, a moment that she’s envisioned inside her head again, and again, and again, during every lonely day that bled into a lonelier night — and she almost misses it. She’s thinking about him. She’s wondering how long she can outrun him, or if she even can. She’s flying hard, and fast, but she’s only a chess piece in the end and gods or kings will always do what they like with her. Blinded by the concept of escaping Forever Malca almost soars beyond the gnarled, weeping boughs of an old oak tree and the river bend that sang to her the first songs she’d ever heard — beyond her father, too. It’s only a fluke, or circumstance, or stars aligning, or fate, that she notices someone below at all; a gust of wind that sweeps the boughs of the ancient tree up in it’s frigid embrace that’s enough to catch her eyes.
She still doesn’t know that this moment is what it is.
When she lands at last it’s beneath the gently swaying boughs of that same ancient oak tree that she was born beside, parallel to that same, tight ‘s’ bend of the gradually curving river. Nostalgia floods her senses until all that she can feel, or think, or taste, or smell, or hear, or see belong to the memories of a simpler existence when the only things she ever needed or craved were her parents. Standing here, she can almost taste the sweet-milk on her tongue again. The thought makes her want to cry.
And she still doesn’t know.
Malca doesn’t see her father behind her, or hear the way that his breath catches in his throat when he realizes his discovery beside the riverbend. Pools of water gather round her feet and ankles from the purple lakewater that still beads and rolls off the lengths of her dark eyelashes, stored temporarily from the tiny rivulets streaming from her tangle of dark forelock, and it’s only in their reflection that she notices his presence at all.
“Malca,” he says, and all at once and without needing to see she knows it’s him — she’s dreamt his voice every night in her sleep. The seconds are stones, and they build bridges across the spaces between them until they are side by side, fire and water. She notices immediately that he’s up against that same cheek Elektrum had touched and there’s a piece of herself left instantly grateful that he is now the last one to have touched her there. The smell of him is something she’d thought she’d forgotten, but when she inhales he is the same as she’d left him; a tangle of sweat, wildflower, meadow grass, and the impalpable tinge of iron, or metal. Blood. She leans her small body against the warmth of his side and cannot recall a time she’s felt more peaceful, or safe. She could spend forever here, she thinks.
“I’ve lost count of the days.”
Malca swallows hard and wonders how long it had really been. She’d kept track at first, dutifully crafting jagged markers from tangled, lavender seaweed that she would pluck herself from the ocean floor. She should have drowned a hundred times over, but she kept going back and keeping tally. She had wanted to be able to tell them how long she had been out there on her own when they finally came to bring her home. She had wanted to brag about her independence, having not fully realized the gravity of her situation in Forever at the time.
She can’t remember when the hope fell away, only that it did.
She can’t remember when resilience became desperation, or when even that fell away into numbness.
She can’t remember when she stopped marking, or screaming, or begging — only that she did. If she had known about the constellations it might have helped.
“So much has happened. I’ve missed you so much.”
Malca doesn’t tell him that she’s missed him too, but the way that her slight body dissolves against his lightest touch will tell him everything that words won’t. Of course she’s missed him — she misses him still; she misses every second of every hour of every day that she has endured without him.
She misses every piece of time they both lost to Forever.
She wants to let him know about the seaweed. She wants to tell him about every lonely night she curled into the long, lilac grass and dreamt of their faces. She wants to explain how she never meant to leave, but the words are smoke on her tongue and when she moves to speak they drift out between the gentle parting of her lips and lose themselves into the air. “I’m sorry,” is all that she manages, and the syllables of those two words alone are tangled enough that they are nearly beyond recognition, sitting heavy in her mouth near the back of her throat where they threaten to choke her.
Can sorrow truly kill you?
And she is sorry — for his worry, for the days he has lost count of, for all that has happened in her absence.
Most of all she’s sorry for the twilight.
“Please, don’t leave me again,” she asks him, pleading as she finds her way back from numbness to desperation.
“Please.”
@[vulgaris]