[mature] there is no other version of this story; kagerus

[rapt]

there is a dream in the space between the hammer and the nail ------ the dream of about-to-be-hit, which is a bad dream ------------ but the nail will take the hit if it gets to sleep inside the wood forever   He’d say the whole thing had felt like a dream, except, well – It had been, hadn’t it? But it was dreaming like he’d never known, rich and real and exquisite. In the dream, he’d bled, and he’d woken up bleeding. In the dream he’d wept, and he’d woken weeping. In the dream she and been there, and when he woke up – (their eyes meeting. wanting) She was there. For a moment. And then she wasn’t. Fading away like – well, like a dream.   He had followed her – had tried to follow her – but he was sleep-dazed, tired, and when he stumbled she’d kept going, until he lost her. This consumes him, he thinks of her often. He dreams of her, but compared to the other dreams, these are weak and watery. Nothing dreams. He moves through life and looks and looks and looks and doesn’t find her. He finds other horses that look like her, some that even share the same features – brothers or sisters or cousins, he doesn’t know, but the world’s a melting pot – but none of them are her. The place where her teeth had sunk in scabs over. The hair grows back. He is only left with the memory of pain.   So when he sees her again, when he’s not even consciously looking, he stops and blinks. He wouldn’t be surprised if he’s hallucinated her, a creation of wanting and missing, but she doesn’t waver or disappear when he blinks and focuses. She remains, by the river, a goddess, patchwork-colored. “You,” he breathes. It’s the first thing he says to her. It had been one of the last words between them before she’d left. “Stay,” he says, “please, stay.”   rapt caius x else