the ghost of a girl that i want to be mostthe shell of a girl i used to know well
The second the scent of him (that strong, masculine, familiar scent) wafts into her nostrils, her heart leaps. He’s still here, waiting for her. But suddenly her chest tightens in a moment of doubt. Perhaps he found someone else, while she was gone. Perhaps he had gone to seek out better company in her absence. Perhaps he’d had more children – raised a son or daughter that wasn’t of her own womb and blood. Perhaps he’d found another to hide his face in when nightmares set in or his frustration got the better of him. Perhaps he’d given his heart away to someone who wasn’t her.
However, the sight of him racing toward her calmed those terrifying thoughts. Her insides felt tangled and tight, her heart beating faster than any run could have caused it, her mouth already forming into that long-lost sunny smile. She doesn’t expect him to stop and he doesn’t. Their first touch is electric and satisfying, like a first drink of cool water after being stranded in a desert. It soothes her sunburned skin and quenches her undying thirst for him. His touches and kisses are rushed and sloppy but it only serves as a symbol of how much he missed her and she missed him.
His name rises like a choked sob out of her throat. “Mast.” She can’t bring her voice to say anything more than his name, so she repeats it. “Mast, Mast, Mast.” It is a chant, a song, a poem, a story – it is the name her heart whispers with each beat against her ribcage, it is the name written on her inhales and exhales, it is the name that she thinks every night before she falls asleep and every morning when she wakes up. “Mast, Mast.” Her head turns to return the touches, erratic and tender.
Although their homeland has burnt around their feet, their love remains strong and honest.
When they are sedated from their touches (for now, at least; although she knows she will never be able to get enough of him), she stays close and nestles her face in the tangle of his mane. “What happened?” she whispers, her voice a rush of worry and grief. The Gates had burned before, but the Mother Tree had kept them safe. Now, there is no Mother Tree to protect them or itself. Her heart pangs again, burning at the image of the Mother Tree drawing it’s mighty branches close around Camelia as her childhood self, soothing her when she became scared from the sound of the wind between the trees.
camelia
