She dreams of him in her first true sleep after returning to the land of the living. She dreams of him in Pangea with blood on his face, confused and so young. She dreams of him traveling, crossing the common lands to return to the place where their friendship grew into something more, where they found something that neither one was sure if it was lust or love.
They hadn't been in a rush then to put a label on it then, they thought they had a lifetime to figure it out.
But her dreams keep spinning in that unpredictable way that dreams do. She dreams of him on top of her, of their fights and his healing, and her sleep brings her little rest.
She begins the transition into wakefulness, the sounds of Tephra working themselves into her dreamscape, the smell of smoke reminding her of where she is. She straddles the place between waking and sleeping, her mind drifting until it comes alongside his. The world around him becomes clear, and she steps across the miles in the span of a breath. Warlight is beginning to think there is something more to the way her consciousness has suddenly been untethered from her body, that the uncanny way she can sense when those she loves are near could be more than just coincidence.
Love.
Something in her being tightens and she realizes what she has just thought, and she resists the feeling in her throat as her eyes open to see him. Her body assembles itself on the beach next to him, but she is far different from the last time he saw her. She had returned to life with a body whole, instead of broken - one shaped by the endless day of battle she had endured in the afterlife - a warriors body and a crown of bones, but still the same defiance in her blue-black eyes.
The sight of him feeds the storm in her breast, the push and pull of emotions she had never put in the time to figure out. Conflicted, she stands waiting, a thing she rarely does, too afraid of what would come out of her mouth should she open it.
She didn't want to fight, but she wasn't ready to collapse into his embrace either, and she had never been good at finding the middle ground.
— soul as sweet as blood red jam —