"I think we deserve
a soft epilogue, my love.
we are good people
and we've suffered enough."
a soft epilogue, my love.
we are good people
and we've suffered enough."
"If you're sure," Michael says, still staring into the woods, still thinking of ghosts and dirt and so, so many things that he cannot bring himself to say. Novus' deities are not without a sense of humor - bleak as it may be. He may wonder how a person can be handed another soul by God herself and wonder at the cruelty of it, but it does not show. The sea of his face, buried in that thick mess of hair, is as still as so many autumn ponds.
How can a person?
How can a person do anything? He does not know.
Maybe this is the uncertainty that she feels: Michael, stumbling in his own fog, crashing to his own shore, a moored boat that creaks and groans and grinds away with the tide. Perhaps his creaking is loud, here in the forest, where it bounces off trees.
Perhaps his heart is such a cacophony that she cannot hear him over its din. Perhaps Michael is the dragon, roaring across the mountain range.
Perhaps he is the damsel. Perhaps he is Morrighan's wolf, gone through the trees. Perhaps he is nothing at all. Never was, never will be.
"Warden!" he grins, "Is that why you're glaring at me like that? I suppose I should congratulate you on a job well done, in that case."
There it is again, the keening. It rises in him like a phoenix, some dark thing birthed from history, some ancient ache that turns his bones to piles of ash. Michael turns again to the shady wood, heart in his throat.
He says, "I'm a storyteller, I guess. But not a good one."
He says, "Anyway, are you coming?" before he tracks off in Bram's direction. He casts her a knowing smile behind his back. "If he's going to be a problem, and you're our warden, you should probably come with me."
@morrighan
