There's blood on your tongue
when you kiss me goodbye
It’s easy to become lost in the past, to allow memories to overcome and ancient emotions to hold sway. She knows this better than anyone (she remembers a time she had lived in fear, had known terror at the thought of loving another, at the possibility of letting someone so close they might destroy her all over again. She had picked up the pieces of her very soul once already, but time had taught her how kind love could be. That the cruelty of her youth had not been her fault, and that living in the past would only serve to destroy her future). Even knowing, she still gets lost in it sometimes. Still allows it too much control.
His words draw her back however, reminding her that her story is not entirely written just yet. She smiles at his gentle teasing, russet gaze returning to him, crinkled in faint amusement. “I think you will find I am more stubborn than you will likely care for,” she replies lightly, only half-joking. Once she had made a decision, it is not changed easily or lightly. For better or for worse, as many had discovered in their knowing of her. Her amiability had so often been mistaken for acquiescence. A fault of hers, she supposes. But she is far too old now the change so easily. “But if you will have me, I think I would like to stay.”
She meets his gaze easily, unfaltering. His intensity is unmistakable, but there is something comforting about him too. Something that puts her at ease, as though she is safe with him. It is a thing she so rarely experiences that at first she cannot quite put name to it. She has spent so long learning the defend herself, to be strong in a world that wanted only to break one down over and over again. But instead of breaking, she had learned to bend.
She recognizes a kinship in him, beneath the force of his being. And understanding, perhaps. He is a boulder, strong and immovable. But she is a river, the water rushing around him. Both with their own quiet strength, and yet able to live harmoniously with one another. She hopes, at least. Perhaps these are merely fantasy’s of a mind too long left to slumber.
I should return to my children. She softens with understanding, knowing the hold children could have on one’s heart. Her smile remains, but a faint sorrow colors her gaze briefly, her own heart squeezing in her chest. “Yes, of course,” she concedes gently. “We must treasure them while we can.”
She misses her own children terribly, flung far into the world by time and age. She would have held them close to home forever if she could have, but they had their own lives to live too. Perhaps one day they would remember her. Would come back home to her.
She accepts his leave then, eyes trailing him as he pauses. Her lips tilt warmly at his hopeful goodbye. “I am certain you will.” She didn’t think she would be going far. Not for a time, at least. “Perhaps you might even introduce me to your children then.”
Elysteria