long long journey out of nowhere
long long way to go
but what are sighs and what is sadness
to the heart that's coming home
Time passes so much more slowly with Raine gone.
Yuan did not notice how much of his life she came to fill until she left the hole behind. Without her prodding questions to guide his thoughts, they run wild, roaming free over subjects long left taboo. And so Yuan finds himself thinking once more of his companions—of his lady, his love, the light of his life before the darkness forced him to shine for himself.
But it seems he has spent too long avoiding her, or perhaps this is what he has been avoiding. Yuan can recall the halcyon days before that knife cut them short, down to the beats his heart skipped, but he can never recapture the feelings that motivated him. All that remains is the dull ache of loss, grown sharper thanks to Raine's welcome prodding, and a vague sense of less welcome discontent.
Still, as he pries into his own tightly shut heart, Yuan finds that what he felt no longer matters, only how he still feels. And he discovers that he still misses them all, more than he would have thought possible after so many centuries. Once, he was a hero, borne up by the strength of his comrades; once, he held onto something greater than himself to fight for. How could one such as he have lost everything?
Yet, as it turns out, Yuan still has far more than he thinks… including the lingering impression of that single, inopportune kiss.
It may have been brief and half-chaste, altogether unremarkable by most standards, but something about it still haunts him. The nature of Raine's goodbye came as such a shock that Yuan could not gather his wits in time either to reciprocate or to push her away. Yet the gesture feels so predictable in retrospect… and so inexplicably, irrepressibly right.
Yuan puts that thought from his troubled mind at first, but as Raine's absence stretches on, her living lips on his break into his reflections more and more frequently. And their kiss deepens in daydreams, at least before he comes back to himself and apologizes—again—to the memory of a half-forgotten love. (Wishing, all the while, that he could feel truly ashamed.)
Raine is not the reason Yuan cannot sleep, but it is only after one more sleepless night that a dangerous certainty rises with the sun. Consciously or otherwise, she has managed to weave herself so thoroughly into his being that, contrary to the gap he feels, she could never really leave him if she tried.
The thought is as terrifying as it is comforting, and Yuan shivers in the frigid dawn. It seems he has given Raine influence over some part of himself so expertly hidden that he assumed he had lost it, too. These days, he has felt nothing save what she makes him feel, directly or indirectly. In telling his tale, he has surrendered far more to her than mere information.
And so another answerless question forms, drifting in the back of Yuan's restless mind: how did her presence, her very existence, become so integral to his life?
Seizing on the superficial, fearful of all that lies beyond it, Yuan decides that it must be because Raine still has a heart that his own responds so readily. She reminds him of how he felt in his own youth, younger even than her, and he has known for some time that she is his connection to this world—past, present, and future. Everything he has lost can still be found, as long as Raine shows him the way.
All that remains is to await her return.
In the meantime, she left several pages of her notes behind. Yuan suppresses the curiosity for as long as he can, but after several seasons pass with no sign of Raine, he picks them up on an impulse and skims through the pages. Just to hear her voice again, even if only in his head.
They may be Yuan's memories, but they have been filtered through Raine's mind, and the things she jots down in the margins feel almost like fragments of diary entries. Bittersweet, intimate… and arcane. Lying to the world: façade, compromised self-ID & loss of trust, distorted concept of truth yet always seeking, one of them reads. Another, those who feel abandoned tend to abandon others—emotional absenteeism—fight/flight re: obligations—Virginia?
The very last of them is in Elven script, but Yuan has been practicing in Raine's absence, and he has always been better with written words than speaking. In a way, this feels like a test, a challenge laid before him. He must answer it. And so he studies her scribble, swift and elegant yet somehow just the slightest bit haphazard, until he finds the meaning in the strokes.
This is where I belong.
Raine feels it more clearly than ever, out-of-place amid the hustle and bustle of a now-busy town. Her brother's house stands in the deepest woods, calmer and quieter in its ancient constancy, but the outskirts of the forest have become much more densely populated. Ever since fire first fell from the sky, the village has grown into a home of refugees, living on common ground beneath the giant boughs.
In a way, this coexistence is a triumph Raine recognizes as something Yuan once fought for. Even if it is too little, and several millennia too late, it is peaceful here. However, Yuan has sworn never to leave me, so he cannot witness his victory for himself. From time to time, she finds herself imagining him at her side, but can never quite picture his expression.
Despite her best efforts to concentrate on the here and now, Raine thinks of him more often—and in more ways—than she cares to consider. She must, for so many of her thoughts and feelings to make their winged way back to me. I hear her most clearly when she remembers that she must report back to him… no… no, not yet. But soon.
By the time Raine finally says her farewells, she is able to do so gladly, but the greeting to come knots her stomach. For she can sense, even before she lands near his house in her obsolete Rheaird, that she will once again return to a different Yuan than the one she left behind.
She finds him in his usual grove, practicing archery. His movements are lithe and fluid, unburdened by the tension of the past, and Raine half thinks it must be because he has not noticed her yet. But then Yuan turns to face her with the sun in his eyes and the wind in his hair, looking four thousand years younger, and her breath catches. This Yuan is the one whose acquaintance she has sought, all this time.
"Welcome home, Raine," he says, in Elven, and smiles.