What he asks for is an easy gift for her to give and Agetta nods her understanding before she finds her voice - forcing it to remain level though it trembles still with the tears that won’t stop. “Of course. As long you need.”
Plume says he needs time, but she knows that means space too. Knows that after they separate tonight, she’ll spend every day wondering if this will be the day she will see him again. Every night wondering whether he’ll appear over the crest of a hill like the moon and break apart the darkness she has drowned herself in.
She tries not to think about how it would be better if this was it - if he never saw her again after tonight. Perhaps it is her turn to haunt the afterlife alone but content with the knowledge that he was alive. That his light could shine for someone else.
It is that thought that drives her to speak again. She won’t move towards him again, it is already too late for one last kiss, one last touch. But if this is it, there’s one thing she cannot regret leaving without saying. “I love you.” The words are little more than a whisper in the night air, a quiet confession of a truth she knows is destroying them both. But she needs to say them because she is afraid she will never get another chance. Even now they taste like a goodbye in her mouth, a finality to the weight they carry.
@[plume]