Meadow

at first it had been easier for her to think of his face. she could run through their brief interaction over and over again, relishing in the fact that she was not alone here… that he carried the blood, that perhaps some others from her homeland had survived. she could trace the familiar curve of his face in her mind and be comforted. it pained her less to think of him than it did her own rodina at first. when it became clear that he had disappeared as quickly and entirely as he had appeared in the meadow that morning, she found that the opposite was true. she had resolved to having little hope of ever seeing her stádo, her rodina, ever again. but to think of not seeing him again, when he had been here in this place too, when she so clearly saw the pain of loss and turmoil written as deeply in his soul as it was in hers…then it became unbearable to think of him at all.

she considers that her body is in a state of absolute betrayal. that her eyes have cast a scene in front of her that does not exist…that her flaring nostrils have conjured the masculine scent from memory alone. she wants to stop breathing altogether, to slam her eyes shut and never open them for fear of falling off yet another precipice of heartbreak. her ears are last to join the betrayal, twitching toward the sound of a body rising from the earth, a step through the frosted grass, and finally the sound of a voice. it is only then that she looks into the thicket, her eyes wide and hollow with disbelief. she shudders at the sound of her name, spoken for the first time in this land with the true accent of her language. it makes her want to cry. she blinks unsteadily, staring at him dumbly. she is so much weaker than the last time they met.

she feels like the universe is choking her, the air shallow and inadequate. long moments pass before she can trust herself to speak and even then the words fall out with uncertainty in language of her království, of her people. a dream? she pauses to consider it….her eyes are pulled to his body and they cannot be forced away. she drinks in the familiar lines of his body shamelessly as she did their first encounter.no it could not be a dream. either nightmare or reality i must believe… but i hope… this word nearly causes her to break. i hope it is real.