She doesn’t know how truly unworthy of his love she is, but his words mean everything to her. Despite her shortcomings, despite her mistakes, she believes him.
There’s a part of her that almost laughs when he says that he never feels more alive than when he’s with her, she almost shakes off the incredibly smooth words that send a thrill through her. But as he says them, she knows how true they are for her as well. “I’ve felt like a ghost for so long, Plume.” Her voice cracks a little over his name out of a habit long formed. The heartbreak she felt over his death has never truly gone away and it remains with her even now, even as she stands so close to him she can feel the heat radiate from his body.
“This…” And she grazes her muzzle against his skin with a gentle, lazy movement. Like they have all the time in the world. “This is the first time I’ve felt alive since...” Since he died. Since she died. Since she came back from the afterlife the first time without him. Since she wandered Beqanna on her own. Her mind cannot even comprehend how long it has been - well over a century surely - she just knows that she had grown used to being a ghost walking among the living. Watching their great-grandchildren raise generation after generation while she remained tethered to a love and a life she could never have again.
Only, he was here now.
“I am so glad I can give you back some of the life you have given me.” Their reunion has been just a blip in time so far, but if asked the day before she would not have been surprised if someone had tried to touch her and found no substance composing her body.
Yesterday, she believed it was possible to decompose while standing. Believed she could feel her mind slipping from her and her heart and everything she carried love for shifting further away.
Today, or at least this very moment, is different. “With you, I'm no longer a ghost. I'm alive again.” Although her fears will never truly be silenced, when she looks into his warm, gentle eyes, she believes that whatever this new life is between them can last forever. That their love will be enough.
And now that she remembers what it feels like to be alive, she knows she cannot go back.
