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The air was a cool caress against her bare skin, the wind touching her lips and stroking her hair as she walked across the barren earth. It was a light breeze, cool enough to ease the torrid sun’s rays, yet still capable of producing a chill as the sun passed over the horizon, giving rise to her moon and stars. Tonight was the night, she thought calmly as she balanced on a small log momentarily, before stepping back onto the cracked ground. Cracked and aged, like her. The wind’s whispers were taunting her again, and somewhere in the distance a howl was heard. It was something she had still yet to grow accustomed to in their small little world, yet day by day, she felt as though she was becoming more and more like it. Worn, dry, barren. She held no virtue but the cool touch of wind upon bare skin.
Somewhere ahead she could feel the water’s edge. Not physically, but as she looked up at the moon, she imagined the push and pull of the tide lapping at the banks, surrounded by a forrest and a little shelter not too far away. This eased her pulse for a moment. Placing one foot in front of the other, ignoring the pain in her legs and temple, she moved further into the darkness. The aeolian music that surrounded her and lifted her made her sigh, closing her eyes briefly and allowing herself the innocent notion of pressing a hand to her heart. Yes, it was still there. She smiled.
It was stepping onto ice at first. The unusual texture, the cold surrounding her and rising up her legs. She gasped, but finally relaxed into the tide, letting her sore skin soak up the water like a thirsty plant. She moved hesitantly, placing a foot in front of another on slippery mud, letting the water rise around her in a soft cocoon. It was only when she was neck deep, and her feet lifted off the ground that she leant back, the moonlight bathing her.
She allowed herself to be carried by the moon’s pull for a while, indulging in the numbing coolness of the water meeting the warmth of the air. The weightlessness was reminiscent of another sense of floating, only her hair fanned around her in a halo of red and gold and silver, touching her shoulders lightly, ever so softly in their whim. She sighed. Tonight was the night.
The echoes of trees whispering touched her half submerged ears, muffled sounds of leaves rustling and animals scurrying to find their shelter or game for the night. Somewhere behind her, she imagined the sound of another light plash of footsteps entering her sanctuary. She wouldn’t bother to look up, nor hide her white skin from him. No, instead she would inhale and exhale slowly, and let the moon pull and push her.
He moved with an impossibly slow pace, gliding into the water as though he were nothing but a mere whisper of the trees, an echo of a distant world. The water parted for him like a seam, leading to her, only ever her. Time had slowed enough for every movement, every breath, to make her quiver as he neared her. No longer a velleity, but the inevitable.
She could feel the moon and the stars warming her skin as he finally reached her. She didn’t move to cover her chest, moonlit peaks cresting the water. She knew he wasn’t looking. No, she felt his eyes, and they were only for her own. The coolness of the water had turned into a warm bath as he floated beside her, looking up at the moon and pretending they weren’t listening to each other’s breaths. Instead of the pull of the tide, her gravity had shifted to another, grounding her against the earth and sheltering her from the numbing pain. For a moment, she allowed herself to be pulled by the tide, to be guided by the wind. She let the breeze soften her, the water calm her and her heartbeat to ease. The earth had become her, and her moon was her warmth, but the tie that had held them together was being loosened, and gifted to another. With the last tug of the wind, she was only pulled closer to him, and his warmth found itself encompassing her as she neared him.
She shifted in her position, floating vertical and looking at how the earth coloured skin was bathed in the same moonlight that illuminated her. His eyes were closed, but the image he held behind his eyelids was all but visible, and no doubtably the same that she held behind her own. It was like her hand was being guided through the water, parting it like he had done as she reached his chest. He did not open his eyes at first, but sighed deeply, no doubt letting go of the same invisible force that he had been tied to. Slowly, ever so slowly, he too shifted, eyes still closed as he whispered like the trees, caressing her face like the breeze. She placed a hand upon his, breathing deeply as the warmth soaked into her skin and she cooled the raging fire underneath his own. Like ice and fire, earth and air, somehow polar opposites, they moved in sync, breathing together, finally as one. Joined by a single touch, they somehow shared their breath, imagining how their stars had aligned across the barren and cracked earth; the whispers of memory and time had found them, and together, ignited their hearts like a supernova as she leaned in ever so slowly to press herself into his arms.
Tonight was the night. She breathed in and out, steadily letting her heart succumb to the throbbing of her head, making her open her eyes in a gasp. In front of her, the barren earth stretched on and the cool water that surrounded her had become localised to her temple, not so slowly spreading down her bare skin and tattered uniform. The warmth she felt was not the safety of his arms, but the desert heat caressing the barely living, and no longer did her wind and moon guide her. She looked down at her chest to check the pocket watch, stumbling as she lost her centre of gravity and finding the dirt rising to meet her at an alarming and unstoppable pace. The pain had climaxed to a numbness that spread its cold fingers around her, pulling at her broken bones and scarred legs. Head throbbing and spinning, she looked through the blurred mirage of his chocolate eyes to the dead earth, knowing that it was pulling her like he had done.
She was no longer on New Earth, and he was no longer by her side. He had no doubt been gone for a long time, just like the rest of them. She was alone, with nobody but her earth and moon to guide her, and the whispers of the dead following her, ready to catch her if she fell. When she fell.
Tonight was the night, exactly one year ago. The cool water had parted around them and they had found themselves in each other’s arms, fire and ice, earth and wind, moon and stars. They had allowed a moment of closeness, of isolated unity as the hands of time encompassed them in a pocket of perennial stillness. She had let her barriers break down, and he had held her close as they moved together under the stars in the cool summer tide. Two individuals, graced with the inevitable promise of each other.
One year ago, she had been held by her fire, her warmth and her comfort. Now, she had faded to nothing but a bare echo of a memory being whispered amongst forgotten trees, the hands of time released her to the stretch of eternity to walk the cracked earth alone. She breathed in the dust, and let herself smile as the coolness of the pocket watch against her heart softened her burning skin. She felt the crack in her skin widen, and the coolness spread over her like a blanket. She wondered briefly where he was now, what moon he was looking up at and what stars crossed his path. The curiosity of the unknown had not guided him like it had her, but the history of forgotten memories and worlds was what pulled him to the stars. Instead of looking out to the future, he would look back at the past, and in the middle they were united with the undeniable present.
She listened to his breath upon the wind, for a moment being drawn to the call of his voice. The earth was hot, but he chilled her. Whether it was her last remaining breath or the first of another life, she succumbed to the cold that surrounded her as she spoke a single word, smiling as it rolled off her tongue and broke the silence of the night. Somewhere, she heard another howl, and in another time, she felt the lapping of water against bare skin and the caress of a cool breeze. As the broken pocket watch ticked on, she felt a hand fall upon her hair, caressing the strands and brushing the blood streams away. She had kept her eyes closed, but smiled as she was weightless again, and the sensation of being carried in his arms encompassed her in a warm cocoon, and the whisper of trees fell upon her ears in a murmur.
A promise, a broken promise.
Always, eternal, inevitable.