[P] last year I abstained

[Samaira]

hold me on your heart as the brave sea holds the foam

She watches the water of the lake brush up against his skin and it looks like he is standing in the sky, so perfectly does its surface reflect the stars above. Elchanan looks like a bright moon in the heavens; brighter and greater than each pinpoint of light, he manages to steal and keep her attention from his place on the shore.

Samaira looks at him as he looks at her, but all she sees is his smile and the way his pale lashes flutter against his cheeks every time his eyes close. Though he sees in her all of her raw, and longing, she says nothing too.

He says he is waiting, and she wonders, for a moment—almost asks—if he is waiting for her. But the pegasus woman knows that is silly, even as her heart skips and trips over itself at the smile upon his face. She is being foolish, she knows she is being foolish. Her heart is wanton and wanting, and betrays her at the simplest of actions.

A grand bow, sweeping low to the ground, and eyes so warm and deep and brown like the color of her skin; like they were made to look upon her skin. No, she wants to tell her heart, you have barely begun to miss the boy with twilight dancing across his curves and sea water at home within his bones.

But then Elchanan speaks, and it is like something else is living inside her veins, or someone else. Someone who does not ache, or love, or miss. Samaira thinks of the altars she had been too afraid to approach in the market square, knowing one would have his face upon it. And then he says, “You would like to dance…” and she is lost.

There is another day, with the sun above instead of the stars, and music in the air instead of the promise of winter. There is another boy. She thinks, she hears his voice, “But if you are moved to dance…” Yes, she thinks. Yes, she is.

Samaira blinks, and her moon-bright eyes find Elchanan standing before her with an outstretched wing. “Nothing would make me happier,” she responds, voice accented and soft. The words feel like an echo of something, but she isn’t quite sure what.

Still, the earthen woman smiles and, too, extends a gold flecked wing. “If you lead, I will follow,” and she takes the first step closer to him, and to the water that is as the sky. It has been so long since she has touched the sky.

take me far away to the hills that hide your home

⚕ | @Elchanan <3