This was written for Reclaiming Dom Week at Goldenlake! The title and lyrics below are both taken from Celtic Woman's Send Me a Song.

Don't look back when you reach the new shore
Don't forget what you're leaving me for
Don't forget when you're missing me so
Love must never hold, never hold tight, but let go

The woods were telling him something this afternoon.

Domitan was not particularly romantic except when a lady required it of him, and he was also not Gifted in any sense of the word, so he could not say, exactly, how he knew. Neal would have scoffed at him, but that was because he believed in the magic of love and not in nature. Perhaps Dom inherited more of his grandmother's brand of magic than everyone believed. He could not explain it otherwise: how the birds sang a sweet melody solely to him and the rustle of the underbrush seemed like whispers.

His mount daintily picked her way down the path, her muffled steps adding a steady staccato rhythm to the birdsong around him. Every so often a droplet would splatter on his face, cool and gentle, the water from the early morning's rain still dripping from leaves. All around him it was green and fresh and wet, alive with life and living.

A large branch drooped low in the path, burdened by the weight of water, and Dom brushed it aside. It sprung back into place when he let go, sending a shower of rain against his back. But then his mount stepped into a clearing, and the woods went silent—

—and he saw her.

She did not notice him immediately. Her head was tilted up to the sky, the dappled light scattered across her face to highlight her delicate features and fair skin. Her gleaming black hair tumbled down her back like a cascade of dark silk.

Then her white horse shifted and she righted her head. Their eyes met, and while her serene expression did not change, he saw her shoulders tense and her hands tighten around the reins. She was a Yamani lady, Dom realized, breathtaking and exotic, with slanted eyes that gave nothing and took nothing.

She reminded him of Kel, for they were both a still water that runs deep. But this woman was also like a nymph from those woodland tales of which his grandmother spoke, tales which he ignored but never disbelieved, because his grandmother was both Doi and Saren and it was a powerful combination. She knew things, and as Dom sat there on his mount, meeting those solemn eyes, he thought he knew things, too.

"Hello," he said hoarsely, vaguely surprised that his throat was working at all.

A breath of wind caught a lock of gleaming hair and pulled it across her face to get it caught in her lips. She reached up a hand—small, white, a child's hand with a lady's elegance—and brushed it free.

"Hello," she said. Her voice was low but clear, despite her Yamani accent.

He wanted to hear it again, but he wasn't thinking clearly, and didn't know what to ask her. Her name, he thought dumbly, but then he would have to say his, and suddenly Dom seemed too silly, like a boyhood nickname, and Domitan was too long and presumptuous.

"Do you—" he began, and stopped. He tried again, "Are you lost?"

"No."

Dom blushed without reason. She never dropped her blank expression—the Yamani Mask, he realized—but only gazed at him with such directness that he felt hot all over.

"Would you—may I escort you back to the palace?"

"I have an escort."

He glanced around and saw nothing. The woods are her escort, he thought, the earth beneath her and the clouds above us and the life all around. She is a wood nymph, she truly is, oh Goddess. Subconsciously, he nudged his mount's sides, sending her forward, closer to her. He was afraid she would bolt but she held her ground, so sure, yet so transparent. He sidled up beside her so that he could gaze into her face and memorize it before she vanished before him.

She stayed.

For a moment, they were suspended in time, just the two of them. Something bright unfurled between them, warm and shining and almost so tangible that he could cup it in his palms. Beautiful, this moment of trembling tension in which nothing would ever be the same once it was finished, like the high note of a flute that ended abruptly, leaving the echo in one's ears.

He could remain like this forever.

"Who are you?" Dom whispered.

Of its own accord, his hand reached out and his knuckle touched her cheek ever so softly. She did not pull way and almost, almost, seemed to lean into it. She feels it, too, he marveled. She feels it.

Yuki.

The name came to him as though from a distance, and the moment he heard it in his head he knew that was her name. Yuki, sweet and playful, sugar and spice.

"Yuki!"

Suddenly, she jerked her face away, turning her mount to face the opposite path. It took Dom a few seconds to realize that her name did not come to him like magic—someone was calling her. It was a man's voice, perhaps her father or her brother. But why did she close herself to him so hastily? There was music between them.

A brief clatter of hooves was the only warning they had before a horse burst into the clearing, bearing a familiar person on its back. From the lanky frame to the emerald eyes to familiar nose, there was no mistaking who this was.

"Dom," Neal blurted out, face splitting into a wide grin. "Cousin! What the—what are you doing here?"

"I was—" Dom glanced at Yuki, but her face was turned away, and for the first time, he remembered: his cousin was betrothed to a Yamani lady named Yuki, a woman who kept him in his place, feisty and kind.

And Dom had already fallen in love with her.

"I was just going for a ride," he finished quietly. "I needed the fresh air."

"Have you already met Yuki, then?" Neal asked blithely as though Dom did not speak, eyes never leaving her face, his expression fierce and proud.

"Not formally."

"Well, then, allow me—Yuki, this is my cousin, Domitan of Masbolle. Dom, this is my betrothed, Lady Yukimi noh Daiomoru."

My betrothed—he dragged out the word as though to prolong it, to keep it on his lips as long as possible. There was an ache in Dom's heart, and he felt it being constricted in a vice, because this love could have been his but now it would never be, should have been his and could never be.

Yuki, he thought desperately.

And as though she heard him, she reluctantly turned her head, meeting his blue eyes that would never shine as brightly as hers, and he saw her sorrow.

And just like that, their light went out.

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