Meadow

It had been Anathema's idea. They reminded themself of this repeatedly, a mantra that tasted of ashes more every time they thought it. Heartbreak's acquiescence had been a cheap victory from the start- he was more cunning than Anathema often gave him credit for, his open book of a body too frank to suspect of guile, and it wasn't the first time he'd tricked his sibling into thinking they'd won an argument that had wound up being a lesson in humility instead. Now days had passed since they'd last seen him- not many of them, not really, but when was the last time they'd been alone so long?

They spent the long, dark mornings nudging at the scrubby winter grass, the cold, bleak afternoons wandering the intangible cage they'd agreed to as a condition of their 'victory', the fire-red evenings staring in the direction of the Common, and the freezing nights curled so very alone, listening to too many sounds in the blackness, and over the days they slowly made a circuit of the invisible borders of the Meadow. By the end of a week, they longed to repent for pushing to explore beyond the quiet relative safety of it, but it wasn't, they had realized too late, a decision that could be undone. It was only getting colder at night, and the nights lasted so long...

Tonight, they didn't bother trying to sleep, instead pacing on dark legs along the brim of the Meadow, where the grasses frothed into nothing like a breaking tide. Despite the sleeplessness, they seemed to have a surplus of nervous energy, freezing attentively as a deer at every rustle and cry in the dark, prowling with an urgency that didn't know what to do with itself in the silences. It felt as if they had to do something with themself, as if anything they did here might keep their brother safe somehow.

It had been their idea, after all, and by now it was a cursed reprimand in their mind.

In the greying gloom (was morning creeping close now?), they thought they saw a horse-shape against the other hazy silhouettes, and they froze, standing tall to stare- but it was just dark enough that it could have been their eyes playing hopeful, nervous tricks on them. The cold breeze shivering up their back was going the wrong way- they couldn't smell anything. Still as a silver statue, straining every sense to where they thought they'd seen something, they whispered his name. Too quiet, their voice unused for too long, barely more than a cloud of breath. They paused, tensing; tried again, no longer whispering, and this time their low, hollow voice rang like a distant, tolling bell.

"Heartbreak."

Not a question, because in this blackness they couldn't stand to ask- almost a threat, though, the tension in their curving body holding them tight as a strung bow waiting to loose.