"... i didn't fall in love of course
it's never up to you
but she was walking back and forth
and i was passing through"
-leonard cohen; book of longing
She will remind herself that he is with her always even when he is not-quite-there; that he exists in the white obelisks, the snowfalls, the sweeping balustrades and gleaming towers and bastions, the twisting pale hallways and the cruel sharpness of her artistry; he is there, hidden in the ice, a breath away from her heart. Looking. Smiling.
He says he is a boy, but he is really more like a god. From the first time he appears when she is but seven years old, she clings firmly to faith in him, the walker-in-the-winter. As she grows, she becomes more jaded, all those childhood religions slipping away from her like shed snakeskin, but still she holds true to her love. He is all the religion she needs, all the religion she craves, and she will wait for him until the end of eternity, until her body flakes away and becomes one with the earth. She will wait, spreading her sweet poison, ready for him to return; she will be prepared when he finally does.
All around them is the frost, choking and sour. She stands at the precipice of her fortress, guards her thoughts from him as he flies outside. He calls her name - Elsa Elsa Elsa - and she laughs harshly, the sound bursting from her throat in a shriek that isn't hers; the lovely gardens, the lakes and the ocean, they freeze and snap.
His leaving is something she must realize, but not necessarily accept. Every time, she kisses him feverishly, impassioned with desire and hatred in equal halves, her nails digging into his skin and his eyes, blue fire, boring into her skull with the intensity of his look. They rarely break apart even to draw breath, and when they do, it is for her to say "Don't ever leave" and for him to answer "Never" and it is a lie, but it is easy to swallow because it comes from him. It is a falsely adorned but attractive pledge, and she thinks that she prefers the idea of his truth to the actual thing altogether. At night, they tear down each others' boundaries and she wakes in the early morning with her mind in disarray, his body hugging hers, his throat under her hand. She thinks of the lies uttered the previous night, the firelit promises, and she will shiver for a reason she cannot name.
They are antonyms and synonyms dancing the most dangerous dance - their falsehoods rise like old demons from the smoldering hearth, drowning her in the taste of him, the absence of him, a great flood of foul water and decay. She slashes at the space where he once was and screams.