[P] last year I abstained

[Samaira]

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

His touch is like velvet, like butterfly wings, and something so intimate she has never experienced before when he tugs at a strand of her hair. There are so many places that they are touching she can hardly count them all, each one like a blessing. She thinks she could be spiritual if this is what grace feels like; like his breath ghosting over the fine hairs on her neck, like she is a flame to his winter chill.

Samaira looks into his eyes, earthly and deep, and she wants to say that yes, she would like to return to the court, to the candle crowned altars and commiserative stares. Where others will dissect her heart like she is dissecting it all her own. She wants to say yes, but she cannot. For all the hiding her heart has done, it cannot lie.

“No,” No, she would not like to. The thought of standing before an altar with his name and his face upon it, lit with flickering flames by all those who held him dear… it is the unknowing that hurts her the most. That they all just disappeared, no trace of what happened to them. That she will never know if she could have told him the truths in her heart, if she could have ever trusted anyone with them the way she so desperately wants to.

“But,” she nearly stops, nearly breaks away from Elchanan’s careful, gentle embrace. She turns her eyes toward the hills, where she knows the court sits beyond them, full of life and laughter and waiting there for her is an unlit candle and so many unspoken words. “I should,” Samaira says, softly, as if trying to convince herself.

She should, she should. It’s the right thing, the good thing. He meant something to her, if the aching of her heart tells her anything about that, no matter how hard her thoughts are trying to distract her. But the press of Elchanan’s skin against hers is terribly, wonderfully foreign and the tender ringing of his voice is settling in her veins like liquid mercury; warm and poisoning. “I don’t want to keep being hurt.”

The earthen woman says it like an admission, or a plea, and the shadow in her moon bright eyes speaks to more than just an altar. Samaira doesn’t know where the honesty comes from—she has never been this honest with anyone—but she feels intoxicated and safe, with him. Why would she want to be anywhere else but here?

take me far away to the hills that hide your home

⚕ | @Elchanan <3