I can't help but fear I've done this wrong,
'cause seldom second chances come along.
Digging chipped hooves into the sand on one of the beaches of the Crossing, it felt to the painted stallion that a lifetime had passed since he had left these shores of his birth. As he stood in the surf, seafoam pooling between his white forelegs, he contemplated, trembling from the physical exertion he'd expended during the swim here (and from the emotions that filled him to the point of overflowing).
His heart was still beating there in his chest, strong and whole even though he thought otherwise. How was it possible? To have changed so much, yet still appear the same outwardly? He did not know the answer to his question, and though he was indeed changed, a turmoil still waged within him. There was a place, not far, where he would seek solace in silence and stillness and past times. Then, only when he was calm within, would he fulfil an oath he had made to three that he had loved.
Only one of them still breathed, and when he returned to Mariael, Dances would tell her, would promise her that he would never again leave her.
-----
‘What do you want from me, Dances?’ Sai had seethed, having thought she had freed herself from his sad, beautiful soul when she had left the Islands that had been their home. ‘Nothing,’ he had replied. He had only come to give her something. An apology – for all the wrong he had done. The pale, sooty mare had scoffed at him, and fixed him with a hard stare. ‘Liar,’ she had accused him (and not for the first time). ‘You want forgiveness.’ She had held her stare, and it took no time at all for Dances to look away, ashamed. ‘I forgave you when I left you behind on the islands,’ she admitted softly, still watching him, and moved unwillingly by his familiar face, voice and scent. She loved him still, but it was no longer enough for her. And her forgiveness wouldn’t be enough for him. She told him as much, speaking plainly. ‘You will never escape what you have done until you forgive yourself.’
And still, he could not.
So many times he had failed those he loved, and those who deserved his protection. He had stayed with Sai, and her two sons, wanting so much for them to have a chance to know their father. But he had done all he could, and Nephilim had held his ground. As always, it was Dances who gave up, gave in, gave ground. Never in his life had he felt so low, so lost, even though the one who mattered most to him was right by his side. The fight had gone out of Nephilim, the will, and as the days passed, and hours of silence settled between them, not even the gentle touches Nephilim placed upon his shoulders, the warmth of his beloved friend’s breath upon his neck could fix him. Dances With Wolves was slowly slipping away. He couldn’t bear it any longer, watching Nephilim day after day, resigned to death, and never returning to the place that had been their home, and always would be.
Dances With Wolves had always been good at running, but turning his back on Nephilim that last time and leaving him behind with all his raw grief and burning rage and choking sorrow hanging in the air, it had been the hardest thing he had ever done. Nothing have ever cut him so deeply as this – as leaving his brother behind to die alone. Dances With Wolves knew that to watch Nephilim waste away would kill him too, and his instinct to survive beat out the desire in his heart to stay until the very end.
It would forever be his biggest regret.
-----
When Dances With Wolves had been young and carefree, before life had burden him with sorrow and blessed him with love, had had run through the woods here, cautious and reckless in equal measure. These trees, and the voice of his mother, telling him stories and teaching him about the ways of the world had been all he’d known. As he walked among them now, they seemed so much less mighty than they had years ago. But they still remained the same. It was he who had changed. Sorrow lay over him, but he carried it with a grace, an ease that indicated that it was not a burden that he carried. He wore it like a second skin, something he was intimately familiar with, as though it was part of him. All that he had done, it had made him who he was. Loss had shaped him, and that was why his head was carried a little low, and why his steps, though smooth and sure, were a little slow.
He walked with a heavy limp, sporting wounds over his hindquarters that were still healing. The deep gouges couldn’t easily be made out against his dark bay patches, but they contrasted against the white that crept up his thighs and rump. And there were similar injuries, scattered across his right shoulder, trailing up his neck, like the kisses of a savage beast, forever marring the skin there that had once known the tender touch of love. But many of those who had ever loved him were gone, and he had accepted this (or so he told himself. ‘Liar,’ Sai still whispered to him when he dreamed). It was the letting go that he couldn’t bring himself to do, not yet. Maybe not ever.
Around a bend in the deer trail he went, and that’s when Dances With Wolves stopped. He was close, so close to his destination – a little hidden glade that had been a safe haven for him when he was young. That’s where he needed to be right now. But, something had drawn his attention. He raised his head, blue eyes peering into the gloom beneath the trees. Dusk was upon them, and he couldn’t make out any figures in the low light. Had it been movement he had sensed? Or sound, or scent? He couldn’t quite remember.
“Zaida?” he called softly, and pricked his dark ears, straining to hear a response. A few moments passed, and he felt he must have imagined the presence nearby. The name had sprung to his lips unbidden, and he tried not to dwell on the memories of the lionhearted filly that were bittersweet treasures to him. Sometimes they shone beautifully in the darkness of his dreams, like splinters of broken glass. With slow but certain hooffalls, Dances stepped into that hidden glade of his, to seek solace in the silence and stillness. In days to come, he’d learn that these things didn’t come quickly to him when he was alone, and perhaps, this very night, he’d find himself with company, though it was too early to say whether it would be welcome or not.
For any who were close by that hadn’t heard his soft cry… If they stopped to listen, they’d hear a gentle humming that was interspersed with - and then taken over entirely - by stifled sobs. You see, his wounds went very deep, and it would be a long, long time before the aching of his heart wasn’t so hard to bare, wasn’t so hard to bear.
DANCES WITH WOLVES
If time can break us, will it make us strong?
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