[open] I don't wanna hear what's impossible; any

[sigrid]

hope was a word, just a glimmer of the blade

She could touch him, she thinks, simply reach out and press her mouth flush against that dark shoulder. She could breathe into him the way he’d breathed into her, once. 

But, though he had birthed her, nurtured her, though she’d know his heartbeat before she knew anyone else’s, there is a divide between them. She knows him, but they could be strangers. 

He breathes her name the same way he had all those years ago. Both of them had, Sleaze and Isakov, the two things she loved most in the world. Her name, the first tangible thing they had given her. And she smiles and tilts her head and reaches toward him without touching him. 

There is something wrong. She can feel it in the way he hesitates. This is not a happy reunion, though it should be. Though she should curl her neck around his and hold him hard and fast. I am you, she wants to say, you are me. Mother, father, all of that and more.

“Are you all right?” she asks and then, finally, touches him. Just barely. Just enough. “I’ve missed you, Sleaze,” she tells him and takes a small, shuffling (cautious?) step closer to him. “Where have you been?” 

— sigrid