Ethenia no longer wants to be a slow dreamer, watching the world grow around her. The way he looks at her has left her naked, shuddering inside but resisting against it. The scale had always been tipped too violently—balance did not exist in her world. It causes her to tremble, not from fear. From something still unnamed. When he reaches out, she holds her breath. She does not betray the voice inside that begs her to close the gap further. Once, she had given this part of herself away freely, unashamed and unafraid. It made no difference in the end. She would be no less alone. A part of her wants to shy away, to keep him (herself) at bay, to remain safe from the pain of knowing this touch, electric and serene, and one day being unable to have it. After all, at times it had been a relief to be alone, to have nothing to lose.
Ethenia stops breathing so he won’t, wondering if she will crumble beneath the weight of this new temperance. What little continence she has is simply not enough. Even when she is sure he will slip away (as all good things do), he remains. And though she is sure she is not asleep, she couldn’t possibly be awake. Here, he has found her: in the space between dreaming and awake. Perhaps here, is where they could stay.
A slow exhale escapes her chest, and she closes her eyes until he withdraws. It is all she can do not to press farther into him. “North, maybe,” it does not matter where they go, she decides, but does not say. She turns away, glancing to the water, to the shadows on the other side. She has seen so little of Beqanna she would not know where to begin. “I want to see it all,” a step is taken toward the riverbank. “Let’s go as far as we can,” for a moment, she swears she has wings, ”Until we find somewhere we can’t bear to leave,” she says simply, as though the solution was right there all along. Whether such a place exists, she does not know. Then again, it’s not really a place she is looking for. Not really.
