"So how come you're so much more chill than McPrincey Pants over there?" Zhenjin tore his eyes from starlight and moonshine and turned his attention back to the mortal woman before him. Francesca, her name was? He flashed a smile to cover his confusion.
"McPrince-?" He followed her line of sight and then laughed. "Ah, Silverlance. You should have seen him only a year ago. I think you shall find that he has cooled quite a bit." He shot Dylan's sister a wink and leaned closer to murmur, "Though how, my ladies, he has resisted your not inconsiderable charm thus far is a mystery to me. I confess to being not nearly so strong a man."
Francesca reddened and shot the other mortal, Victoria, a wide-eyed look, mouthing something incomprehensible to her sister, though Zhenjin could have sworn he made out the words "stud" and "muffin." Victoria laughed and shook her head.
"You may not be," she said. "But it's no mystery to us. With Dylan on his arm, I doubt he'd ever notice anyone else's charms." Zhenjin's smile tightened as his eyes were once more drawn back to moonlight. She did look radiant, there on the Silverlance's arm, all velvet and soft light. The ache in his chest sharpened as her eyes flicked toward him, a ghost of a smile on her lips and an odd flicker of…was that concern? in her eyes.
"Indeed," he murmured. "Nor would she." If either of the mortal women caught the ancient sadness in the words, neither of them showed it. He turned his attention back to them with vigor, struggling in vain to banish the ice that slid between his ribs like a blade, ignoring fruitlessly the sound of her laughter and the brightness of her smile while she embraced the other arriving members of her family. It just added to all the noise in his head, the memories (not his memories, he had to remember, Nuada's) of her sounds, her screams, her secrets. He cursed himself silently for the foolishness of his heart, for the way it thumped just a little faster when she looked at him, for the way suddenly heaven and earth and duty seemed like trifles, light as air, when she smiled, for the way he would give his life just to touch her again, for the way…
"Hey Dylan."
Oh.
For one blessed moment, the noise in his head was still.
"Renee." Love and joy like Zhenjin had never seen (so of course he would see it in her) bloomed in Dylan's face as she rushed to the newcomer, taking her into her arms and holding her tightly. "Renee. I don't believe it."
Renee. He repeated the name in his head. It was French for "reborn." She looked very much how Zhenjin imagined Dylan might have looked, had she been loved and supported the way she should have been. They had the same eyes, he realized, not necessarily in color, but in the way they looked at things. Eyes full of love, full of starlight. Eyes I dare not meet in dreams. The words came unbidden, like from a half remembered dream that he wasn't sure he had. Those eyes glanced at him briefly, taking in the scene, and in that briefest moment, Zhenjin could imagine a life reborn.
Then Dylan glanced his way and all the noise came rushing back again. A life reborn, perhaps, but not for one walking the long, lonely road of a love never realized. You had to die to be reborn and unrequited love didn't kill you, no matter how much he wished it would.