it erupts like a volcano, then subsides.
And when it subsides, you have to make a decision.
For a moment, she does think that she might be dreaming. She had waited so long to see him standing before her once again. She had always known she would see him again, always known that he would return, always known that she would be waiting. But standing here, staring at his familiar features, the moment feels surreal to her. And she knows that he feels it too. She can feel the kaleidoscope of emotions within him.
She takes a step towards him, and another, and another, until they are close enough to touch. She doesn’t, not yet, half afraid that he will disappear before her skin can touch his. And then she can feel his pain and sorrow, his regret. She knows then that he has truly seen her, seen the stories written into her skin, into her very bones. A sadness rises within her, for him, for herself. He questions, and she wishes that she could have better answers to give to him.
She doesn’t reply immediately. Instead she allows her muzzle to fall against his skin, pressing closer into his warmth and comfort, red and black against white and gold. She had missed this, missed him. His time away had made so many things clear to her, had shown her just how erroneous her fears had been. She sighs softly, her breath fanning his skin as she considers just what to tell him. The truth, of course. She could never lie to him. But in this instance, the truth is so very complicated.
“I don’t know.”
That is the most honest answer she has. She still has not been able to learn what had truly happened that day, still does not know who the man had been that had taken so much from her. She may never know.
“One minute, I was myself. The next, there was another, taking over my mind… my body. He tried to fly, and he couldn’t. I fell.”
She is far too aware of just how crazy she sounds, how confusing and jumbled her explanation is. But it is no less than she feels. It had been a terrifying experience, one she is not keen to relive. Unfortunately it is one that never seems to leave her mind, plaguing her with the mystery of the unsolved.
But for now, she wants only to bask in the joy of his return. She does not wish to dwell upon past horrors, even though she knows that it is inevitable. So she leans into him, closing her eyes briefly, as though to block out the painful memories. When she opens them again, her russet gaze finds his golden one as she struggles to suppress the ghosts of her past.
“You look… incredible.”
You have to work out whether your roots
have so entwined together
that it is inconceivable that you should ever part.
Because this is what love is.