Let me apologize to begin with...
I should apologize of course. It’s my fault, after all. But I can’t. I can’t be sorry for doing something to protect her, no matter how much it had broken my heart. Because, you see, we’d grown to know each other so well. And she would’ve stayed. She would’ve let herself be pelted and burned over and over again just so I didn’t have to feel lonely. And I couldn’t do that to her. I’d tried to explain once, but I don’t think I’d done a very good job. It’s hard to explain the true horror until you’ve burned down a forest on accident, and could only watch while the flames ate everything they could.
I worry one day I might kill someone with it. Sometimes, the rocks aren’t little. Sometimes they’re big. Huge. Enough to kill a horse, even one the size I am. And that scares me. I couldn’t imagine killing another horse, even if it was only an accident.
But Litha, she’d always been so fearless. She wouldn’t have cared one bit. She would’ve stayed. And I couldn’t do that to her.
My smile eases a bit when her eyes light, that lovely smile of hers curving her dark lips. Even after all this time, she still treats me like I matter. Like we’ve been friends forever, like it hasn’t been years since we’d last spoken. I meet her in the hug, pressing close as I close my eyes, breathing in her scent. It’s still familiar, smoke and fire and something uniquely her. I hold her close, enjoying the moment as long as I can. Who knows when it might come again.
“I missed you,” I whisper, rubbing my lips gently, comfortingly, along the ridged scar marking where a wing had once been. “So much.” The last is almost inaudible, my voice thick with emotion. I shouldn’t have said it, but it’s true.
I could never lie to her.
Another shower of rocks distracts me, causing me to jerk sharply away. To put a little distance between us. I knew better, of course. Seeing her has brought back so many old emotions. And the rocks always come when my emotions are high. The only time I can never control them, even a little bit.
Moment
accident-prone son of Offspring and Lirren