Author's Note: This story really should be placed after G is for Grief because these two are related, so I recommend you read Grief first before reading Equilibrium. Sorry for the inconvenience, blame it on the letters and the need to find a word and a story for each of them :) I hope you enjoy the read anyways.

E is for Equilibrium

Draconis, 9:37 Dragon

The sun is setting in the west surrounded by a halo of blues and violets, oranges and yellows, a blood-red ball against the rapidly darkening sky. There's a chill in the air, clouds of mist rise from the ground and swirl around his feet like milk-white ghosts as he approaches the run-down shed at the outskirts of Amaranthine like so many times before. He comes here every time he is in the city and always at sunset.

The once neatly kept house is a ruin now. No one wanted to live there anymore after the murder. The last supporting beams are creaking in the cold air of the early spring and every now and then there's a clattering sound when another piece of wood or plaster falls to the ground. Rats are scurrying about in the darkness, hiding from the light of the small lantern he has brought along. It is dangerous to go into that ruin. It can all fall apart at any given moment but he doesn't care. He knows where to step, could find his way blindfolded by now.

His steps lead him to the overgrown and neglected backyard, everywhere littered with rubble and rotting wood. Everywhere but for that small space in the middle of it where the grass is thoroughly cut, the weeds painstakingly removed, that small space where a lone rosebush is watching over the remnants of a once cozy, little home.

He kneels down and places the lantern next to it, inspecting the leaves and thorny stems for frostbite and malnutrition and a small smile curves his lips when he finds that the bush he planted so many years ago is still strong and healthy.

"There you go," he murmurs softly, his fingers gently loosening up the hard, frosty earth around the plant. "Nothing that will shake you so easily, huh?"

With a sigh, he sits back on his haunches, the smile fading from his lips as he stares at the rosebush. Usually when he comes here, it is for comfort. This place holds a lot of unsettling memories but for some reason, it also always helped him calm his troubled thoughts and feelings. Maybe because in this place he feels closest to her; to the woman he once loved and who was so brutally slaughtered in this very spot. But there is no comfort to be found tonight.

Tonight he has come to say goodbye.

"I'm going to get married," he tells her quietly. Sometimes when he talks to her like this, he can almost hear her pearly laugh, the soft lilt in her voice. As if she would answer if he only talked long enough. "She's special, you know?"

He feels like he needs to explain it to her, as ridiculous as it might be, the feelings he has for his soon-to-be wife. There is no doubt, neither in his heart nor mind, that he wants to marry her but there is a part of him that feels like he's betraying Brynna, his first love, the part that still desperately clings to a past he cannot bring back and that never really let go.

As he sits and talks, he suddenly feels the presence of someone else in his back but he doesn't turn around, not even when a gentle hand comes to rest on his shoulder. He knows who it is. Her scent of almond and vanilla betrayed her long before he heard the rustling of her cape and the soft crunching sound of her feet in the dirt. It comes as a surprise that she followed him, something she never did before but he doesn't mind her being here. It actually feels right.

They remain like that in silence for a long while, her standing beside him with her hand on his shoulder and him crouching on the ground, each of them paying their respect in their own way.

Finally, she kneels down beside him and reaches out, placing a small wreath of the season's first flowers at the foot of the rosebush and he feels his throat growing tight with that unexpected, heartfelt and honest gesture. She shouldn't be here, shouldn't lay flowers down by his dead lover's memorial but she is and she does and it means the world.

A pained, dry sob leaves his mouth despite his desperate effort to hold it back, to blink away the tears that suddenly burn in his eyes and to lock the grief back into that secure place in his heart where it had dwelled for almost twelve years. It won't be locked away again, though, and when her gentle hand strokes at his cheek, at the lone tear that has escaped his eyes, his carefully erected walls crumble to dust and ashes.

His hands claw into her cloak when she wordlessly pulls him into a tight hug and allows him to grieve, really grieve, for the first time. He buries his head in her neck as violent, anguished, furious cries wrack his body and she lets him. Because she understands. Because she knows better than anyone, better than even he himself, how much he needs this and he holds on to that, to her understanding, her unobtrusive comfort, the strength she willingly offers to him to draw upon.

And with her, it's alright. With her he doesn't feel ashamed of his tears. He can let go of this old pain without being judged or deemed weak. She makes him feel whole again, liberated, as if he has found his center, an inner peace he did not even know he was missing and it feels good, so very good.

When his sobs have finally quieted and his thoughts begin running in more orderly lanes again, he lifts his head from her shoulder and cups her cheeks that are stained with tears as well. For a long, long moment he just looks at her, drinks in all the feelings he sees in those grey-blue orbs before he leans in and kisses her, kisses her like he has never kissed her before and it doesn't feel like betrayal anymore. It just feels… right and it might only be his imagination but he can almost hear that pearly laugh and that lilting voice blessing them.

"Come on, let's go home," he whispers against his lovers lips and when they leave the backyard and the once cozy, little house hand in hand, he doesn't look back because finally, after all these years, he has found peace.