Private I once heard honest words;

in sunshine and in shadow

I would not want to be returned. The words ring like bells in his ears, distant across a midwinter night, softened by snowfall and gilded by flame. They give rise to a hundred questions his tongue can’t find the words to ask and his heart can’t begin to untangle the meaning of.

And before he can try she is running again.

Once more she flees from him like a doe and not a lion, and he wonders why - for whose benefit. As she had been in the swaying grasses in the golden light, shedding that god-water like a thing rising out of the sea, she is beautiful; even as she disappears into shadow and sound (and then to nothing) some part of him is following her, heart in his throat. Still he tries to place the patterns of her, the lightning mark that cleaves her skin, the scythe upon her tail. And still the mystery is too much for him. The king hopes, one day, to understand.

But now he only stares into the dark long after she has disappeared, and thinks after her fading figure good night, good night, I’ll say a wish for you.

@Thana the shortest of closers <3