so we let our shadows fall away like dust
She moves with no purpose at first, flowing away from the grullo mare like dark water through an even darker forest. It is only when her hooves find a well worn path, a path she herself has travelled many times and often with a much lighter heart, that she surrenders to the instinctive urge to run until the physical pain matches the agony twisting in her gut, chewing through her heart. She bolts with all the grace of sunlight, weaving easily through the trees and around the enormous stones until her shoulders darken subtly with sweat and shadow. Her thoughts are singular, an echo of the pain in her chest, pushing her faster and further and hiding from her, so carefully, so deliberately, all thoughts of this new home, of her family, of the cave and the man who lived within.
You are not enough, not enough, not enough, not enough.
It is this truth that chases her as she runs, forces her to the edge of Sylva where it promises peace and quiet and some semblance of safety from that which breaks her even now. She is so close, almost gone, can see the edge of the territory where it looms several yards away, marked by the change of deciduous tree to soft pine. Can see beyond to the places where he cannot follow. But something else reaches her first, a scent that is heady and dark and undeniable, of sand and deepwater and her heart stills her feet. She knows it is him even before she picks him out of the half-shadow, even before she turns and he sees something in her face that makes him call out to her.
Luster? What’s happened?
Those dark eyes dart from his face to the line of nearby pine, from the pine to the gap between them and then back to his face again because she knows she can reach it before he can reach her. She can be gone and allowed to hurt in peace before he can even understand how much she knows.
But she won’t, or can’t, because even now, made up of shattered glass and broken bones, raw nerves and a flayed open chest, she still loves him. She will not use his captivity against him. Not yet, not until he turns and leaves and sets her free, and she is certain he will. “Why didn’t you tell me?” She asks, broken, and that voice is silver with sorrow, wilted with defeat. But he is only quiet, maybe uncertain, confused, and so she pulls those luminous eyes from his face to look down at the dirt worn smooth beneath her feet. “Djinni told me, Stillwater.” She says again in that same sad voice, though it is softer now, even more fragile than it had been before.
It hurts so much to say aloud, to relive the moments in her memories, to remember how those truths had buried themselves like daggers in her chest. “You should have told me, don’t I deserve at least that?” Her resolve folds in on her and she drifts precariously toward the border again, just a few small steps before her eyes land on the silver chain at his ankle. She freezes. When she speaks again her voice is careful, soaked in shadow, whisper-soft. “She is pregnant with your child, she loves you, and you let me –“ But she can’t finish, can’t find the words because she will not tell him the ones that are sitting on her tongue. You let me fall in love with you. The truth will be in her eyes anyway, two dark bruises of aching brown, expressive to the end.
Her head hangs low so she tucks it to her chest, pulling her chin in tight. She doesn’t mean to think about it, but another breeze carries his scent to her and all the memories of all the nights they had spent tangled together in his cave come crashing down around her. “Stillwater.” She aches, lets his name slip past her lips before there is ever a chance to stop it. Her eyes lift again to find his face, to trace the curve of his neck and the strength in his shoulders. They linger too long at his chest, a chest she had always pretended was meant for her to fold into. It is less perfect now, perhaps, that she knows the truth. She forces her eyes away and they fall instead into the hollow of his back, long and lean and muscular, follow the curve of his hip and then downwards until she looks suddenly away to hide the blush in her eyes. It doesn’t matter anyway; these are all things she has traced, tasted in the dark, memorizing with her tongue and her teeth and her kisses.
Her gaze disappears to the border again, longing for the safety of the shadows beyond, but instinct or reflex or worry betrays her. Instead, slowly, she closes the distance between them. When she stops again she is still carefully out of his reach, not close enough to touch, but close enough to feel the heat emanating off of his dark body. “Now I have to forget about you.” She says, soft and uncertain, defeated, closing her eyes for a long moment to hide the pain from him. “I have to let you go and I don’t know how. I don’t know if I can.” She opens her eyes and looks away, turning from him to peer deeper into Sylva, back the way she had come, back to where her parents must be, back to where his cave remained hidden by the lake.
That cave had become home, he had become home.
When she turns back she is soft again, not in her starshine way, glowing and silver and bright, luminous and beautiful. Instead she is hollow, carved out and empty, broken by that treacherous thing still beating in her chest. But she reaches out to touch her lips to his chain, trying and failing to lift it from his ankle if only to confirm what he had already told her. Its weight was impossible, must be uncomfortable, and she lifts her lips from it to touch her mouth against the curve of a jaw that is so dark and so perfect and so painfully familiar. “You shouldn’t be out so far.” She says, brushes her lips across his nose and pulls back again. Even now, even broken and defeated, she cannot help or hide the worry that creeps into a voice that is decidedly distressed, uneasy. “Stillwater,” and she is imploring him, wanting to touch him and hide from him and fall from an earth with no gravity, but instead she is quiet, uncertain, worried for him, “what are you doing out here?”
