Lysander out to tell her to lie back among her piled blankets, to not reach for him, not ever – but of course he does not. He may be learning many mortal things (of pain, of love, of friendship, and the awful braiding of the three) but he is still as selfish as any god.
We are, she says, and for the first time in this little room within a hollow tree he smiles truly. It is like a fern uncurling, green and promising and oh, so young and so ancient all at once. We Are, he thinks, and isn’t it true? In every world she has found him, named him, known him. It is as inevitable as breathing, inevitable as death.
Even her next question, so quick on the heels of that simple phrase, cannot dim the hope that pools in his heart like water, like light.
“If I were wise I’d tell you no,” he says, and bends close enough for his shadow to fall once more across her. “That I am always right, and very wise.” Oh, he wants to press his lips to her cheek, her throat. To beg her blood to stay where it belongs and fix her, fix her, fix her.
But the healers have already done what they can – bandages of cloth, splints of wood, poultices that smell sweet-sharp and bitter, so bitter – and there is nothing anyone can do for her memories. Do ghosts walk those halls in the dark within her mind, or are they altogether empty?
“Your wrath is famous,” he says, but his smile, the softness of his voice, belies the falsity of the words. “Known across four kingdoms. Evil kings and their courtiers flee before it.” Little lies, little truths.
Tell me how you have wronged me, she says, and Lysander pauses. His smile – that rare true one – is gone like a passing shadow beneath boughs of birch and cedar. In its place is a little remnant, a crook at the corner of his mouth. “I am not so big a fool as that,” he says, “but ask me again. When you are well.”
He considers her then, the way she does and does-not remember. He considers the way she reaches for him, though she does not remember him, and the way he hovers just out of her reach. Her hair lies like spun gold, carelessly discarded, across her pillow. “They are the flower-nymphs,” he says softly, “and once I knew them well.” Lysander says nothing at her last words, only feels his heart beat like fists against his ribcage, a warning or a wanting. When she at last lies back he is grateful, but he watches the downturn of her lips, the worry in her face.
Once, lifetimes ago, forgetting was a gift he gave to many. Strange that now he sees it only as a curse.
“Close your eyes,” he says softly, and thinks of a few nights ago, when he lay cradled by root and rock, helpless at the feet of the storyteller. “And I will tell you a story. I’ve learned a few from a friend of mine.”
but it's not late
it's only dark
@
