Author's Notes: Well, that's all, folks. XD We've reached the end of the end; I'm almost sad to see it finally go, but oh well. I hope taking the long way home has been as pleasurable a ride for you as it has been for me. Many thanks, especially, to those who helped me out of the many ruts in more ways than one. You know who you are, lovelies.
11: Experience
Once in a while, she dreams.
They come, dancing close, and are gone just as quickly, capricious as the early snow that never seems to be sure about when or where it will fall. They come in dark, light, gray-- in the near-bottomless pit that fills the gaps between them with a choking sort of nothing. But they come when they must.
She finds that's become increasingly often lately, in the muted quiet of the early afternoon. It takes a little more effort to open her eyes these days, a little more force to keep her hands moving at some task or other that after a while only seems tedious and time-consuming. More often than once in a while, she rests her head against the knotted bark of her bare peach tree, and lets her vision cloud and clear by turns. There, uninterrupted between sleep and waking, she dreams.
She sees him more often than not, standing by the balustrade just outside her reverie, with a look on his face mirroring concern. He worries. Not for her, she knows, or for her only in part. His attention has always been fixed on something bigger, on a straight and narrow lane that leaves very little to deviate from or turn aside. It's just part of who he is-- who they are. She keeps to the borders, thriving on the patches of detail that will never be put under the scrutiny of an admiring eye. He sees the big picture, something bigger than their childhood and their corner and their autumn leaves that fade into the color of his eyes when the firelight strikes his face just right. She lets him. He lets her let him.
That just how it is. It doesn't matter.
Some part of her thinks it ought to matter more. She ought to mind, it says, but she replies that she'd rather not. She ought to speak, it insists, but she tells it that she knows better.
Or do you?
She would. She knows she would, if she had time to dream a little dream a little longer, if that someone, whoever it was, would stop shaking her shoulder, whispering something her ears miss only just. She shakes her head, tired, laggard as she rarely allows herself to be.
Stop it.
Yet it persists, as ghosts and shadows will, or children. Or ghosts and shadows of children.
You've been asleep too long. Wake up.
"Wake up."
She gives in, lifts the curtains from her eyes enough to look and see him there. He looks back, a little apologetically, but does not sit by the roots with her as he used to do. Her gaze flicks to the gate, where his stallion stands tethered, eager and waiting. She doesn't need words to put two and two together.
"…It's time, then," she says at last, her whisper misting tiny clouds in the air in front of her. "You're ready to go home."
"Away, more like." His returning smile is wry. "Though I wish I could tarry longer."
"Then the years have made you foolish, Little Dragon. I hope you haven't forgotten what I said the last time. You know who you owe your allegiance to, and they're very fortunate indeed." She laughs a little. Her laugh is more water than silver now. "But I wish you long life, among other things. Do tell me…" A cough. "…Do tell me if there's anything more that you need for the road ahead."
"Nothing, but thank you. Except, maybe…" He shifts a little, and the old, stumbling gawkiness returns for a flash. "Xiang, is there anything I can do for you? Anything you need that I can supply?" A pause. "Anything you want at all?"
A moment of consideration follows, before she answers him as she rises, dusting herself off, bowing low at the waist so the curtain of her hair falls forward. It masks her. It's a comfort, but she finds she doesn't need it quite as much as she thought she once did.
There are many childish comforts that she finds she doesn't need anymore.
"Only that you remember me kindly every so often, Yun." She straightens up, brushing the veil away to be able to look into his face from her own. "And that you never forget this place."
He does not speak. Over the years, he's learned the value of silence, the beauty of not using a word when none would do. He knows, in his way, how to convey his meaning as she did, as she does: with a movement, a gesture, a glance, only a glance…
Her body is thin in his arms, all sharp angles and gentle curves, and chill. The slow rise and fall of her chest as she breathes betrays nothing at all.
"Say something?" he ventures, when it becomes clear that neither will speak and one has to gently push the other into doing so.
"What do you want me to say?"
"I don't know." He gives a half-joking shrug, runs his fingers once through her hair. "That you'll miss me?"
"…Why?" Her gaze flicks again to the white stallion tethered to the gate, waiting, and she steps away with only a split second's hesitation.
Not enough to matter, she tells herself. Not enough to leave a lasting mark.
She turns, partly to hide her smile from him, partly to mourn for something, a little. She isn't sure what, but maybe one of them will stumble upon the answer one day, and tell the other. "You're not going anywhere."
He laughs at this. A real laugh this time, a clear peal without any grating or strain. It continues, gradually softening, as he moves away from her, toward his mount. Neither of them, he's realized, likes the sound of the word "goodbye" very much, so something else must suffice until next time.
"That's true. I'm only taking the long way home."
Fin