Warm beneath his wing she feels guilty for having drifted off, but it is only tuppence added on to her massive debt of mistakes. Kensa is certain her selfishness reaches down into the very marrow of her bones and she will never be clean of it. That is not the source of the anxiety. She looks upon Brigade, exhausted handsome Brigade and knows her love for him has not subsided, yet she cannot bring herself to show it to him again. It will kill her to be rejected now. So it is pulled close, smothered in her hands and then buried in the dark wet earth so that it cannot shine. Maybe she can stop herself from poisoning anyone else.
She gives him a smile—false, steady—and eases carefully from beneath the massive wing held tightly over her side. The smile fails though, and she waits there behind it when she stands apart and can really look at him. Her expression flickering into sadness and then smoothing swiftly into calm. “We should go, you need to rest.” Kensa knows that when there is something tangled here, something trying to break. She should try to kill it. Strangle away the connection while it feels weakened. “I would see you again...I...” Shut up you stupid woman, before he finds his wings again and leaves you here like the fool you are.
“I have go.” Her lips find his, a fleeting kiss that tells him she’d rather stay. She backs away before she can linger and offer to guide him home or to a place where he might rest beside her. The wind pulls her mane around her face and the strands snatch the tears before they can make their way down her pale face. “Take care Brigade. I’ve missed you. I just can’t stay. I don’t know how to do this.” Pulling herself out of reach. The safety of Hyaline feels far off but once again she is about to go racing back to it. “Goodbye.” She’s always known she could love him but not how much it would hurt, how lost it would make her feel. Kensa is halfway home before she stops regretting leaving him, and when she stands upon her own border and turns back to look down on the forest path and the river falling away into the trees she tells herself to forget.
Not knowing that in days his child will be growing swiftly inside her womb, a tender green seedling rising from what she’d just tried to bury.
@[brigade]
