Rebirth
Warmth crept over him, a strange, pleasant warmth that made his skin tingle, like sunshine or a warm breeze or a lover's gentle breathing. He felt so completely alive, but that was impossible because he was dead.
His final moments were clear as fragile crystal in his memory. He remembered her arms around him, cradling his head and shoulders against her bosom. He remembered her hot salty tears striking against his cheek, and his own tears mingling with them. And more than all of that put together he remembered her final words to him:
"I will love you, always."
Gods! Of all the people it could have been, the last one he would have wanted to end his slavery and end his life was her. The last one, and yet, the only one, because it was her that he had been forced to betray.
He remembered every time that he had thought 'if only'. If only he hadn't been bound. If only he had been stronger. If only love was enough to break all spells. If only she hadn't been the one his enslaver wanted. If only...
The insistent warmth invited him to open his eyes, and slowly he did. All he could see was darkness, save for two shimmering, dancing, darting lights that seemed to be right before him and a hundred thousand miles away at the same time. He looked at them with sleepy curiosity. It was strange... he could almost feel sympathy radiating from them. He wanted to say, "Don't pity me," but his mouth refused to work. So he continued to look at the glowing smudges of light.
And then in a voice that he did not hear so much as feel, the lights said, Life was cruel to you, child, so Fate has given you another chance.
"Another chance?" he wanted to ask, "What do you mean another chance?" but once again his voice failed him. The time for speaking was past anyway. He closed his eyes again, and withdrew into himself. He tried to disappear, but the warmth filled him. Summoning him forward and drawing him out, it swallowed him whole.
He felt a strange motion inside his chest, strange but familiar.
His heartbeat... his heart was beating.
Beneath him he felt blades of grass prickling his bare skin, and from above he felt the sun on his face. He felt the wind move his hair. The wind...
He was alive.
He sat up, and opened his eyes, drinking in the sun, the wind and the sweet, sweet feeling of taking a breath of air. His gaze traversed his surroundings, taking in the hill on which he sat, noting the tree that grew nearby, and the pure blue of the sky.
A noise at his side caught his attention and pulled him away from his awed inspection of mother nature. There in the grass, not more than two feet away, lay a woman dressed only in a long silvery blonde river of hair. Her eyes were closed, but he knew that if she opened them that they would be blue.
It was her.
With a shaking hand he reached out and stroked her arm, the feeling of her smooth skin under his fingertips making his whole body feel like he'd just been struck by lightening.
Her eyes opened, and for a moment he felt that if the world were to end right then and there, he would be able to die again, this time content.
She opened her eyes and her gaze focused on the face of a man. She smiled softly at the familiar scarred visage of her beloved, remembering so many mornings when she had woken to see him asleep beside her, his merry black eyes closed in peaceful slumber. And then she remembered the one day she had knelt, holding him close as his eyes had closed for the last time.
She was dreaming, and it was a cruel, cruel dream.
Unbidden, tears came to her eyes and her vision swam. The phantom beside her frowned, and cupping her cheek in its hand, wiped the tears from her face. She gasped as she felt the warmth in the phantom's touch. It felt so real, but it had to be an illusion. It couldn't be real.
Could it?
With her own trembling hand she reached up and clasped the hand of the phantom. It was firm and warm and wet with her tears. And as real as the ground beneath her. As real as she was, and just as alive.
She sat up, keeping his hand clasped tight in her own, afraid that if she let go he might fade away and she would awake again to face another miserable day alone. She watched him intently as he too sat up, his eyes wide with joy and surprise.
They sat there for a long, long time just looking at one another.
Finally she spoke, her voice thick with emotion, "Yoshimo."
"Brynn." He said her name like it was a hummingbird's egg and the merest whisper might break it.
She lifted one hand and touched his cheek, and he took it in his own hand and brought it to his lips.
The dam broke and they leaned heavily into each other's arms, fumbling as they tried to hold each other as tightly as they could. It was the sweetest embrace either had ever felt.
"Brynn, beautiful Brynn, how did you work this magic?" Yoshimo wondered in a whisper.
"I don't know," Brynn whispered back. Her throat caught and she found herself unable to say anything more.
Yoshimo opened his mouth to say something, to praise whatever god had made this miracle possible, but he too could not speak. Words didn't matter anyway. All that mattered was that he was alive and Brynn was in his arms. The answers would come in time. For now, he would be content just to hold the woman he loved.
The End
************