Disclaimer: Mostly not my own, for sure. Poem is Two Bodies by Octavio Paz.
Two bodies face to face
Are sometimes two stones
And night a desert.
Even in daylight the world here existed only in shades of gray, but nighttime had rendered it a monotone of darkness. From where she stood Ami could do no more than stare out at the blank world that stretched out before her. Behind her Makoto muttered unintelligible curses until a grunt of approval was followed by the crackling of new flame. Fingers of warmth stroked the back of Ami's neck.
The flickering light tried to cast a fair glow on the world around them, but it is difficult to dispel shadow when there is nothing to catch the light. These two women were in a place where the drumbeat of life had been silenced near one thousand years ago. No green. No birds. The dusty ground, naked save for a stubble of colorless grass, swept away into the distance, right up to the foot of the Crystal City. Ami sucked in a chilled breath. She did not want to be here, where life had failed, where bare trees stood quiet with frozen limbs.
Frozen limbs. Silent faces beneath a shroud of glass.
Ami forced away the unpleasant images that filled her mind and turned to find Makoto mid-conversation. "Well, we made it. How long do we wait?"
"Until these clouds move." A thick barrier masked the sky above them, casting them in a total darkness that made it difficult to believe tonight's moon was at its peak. Ami turned her back fully on the pressing night and her eyes fell on Makoto. Makoto. Solid. She was the stone that stayed cool through the heat of day but gave all that heat and more into the coldest night.
Ami sat next to her and took comfort in that warmth, grateful, for no one ever came to this place alone. Few came at all. But Ami had been tasked with gathering a very particular herb and so come she did. They called it, simply enough, moonflower, and apparently it was particularly useful for keeping night terrors at bay. Apparently it grew solely in this barren place, showing itself only during the full moon. Apparently it defied everything Ami thought she knew about green and growing things.
The fire popped, a resounding noise in a night of unbroken silence. It occurred to Ami that never before had she felt so alone, so isolated in a place that should have been home.
"Are you cold?" Ami must have shivered, but before words could make themselves heard, Makoto pulled her against her side and stretched her cloak around her. "There we go. No, it's okay, rest your head on me. I'll keep an eye out."
Sleep did not seem welcome here, but Ami did lay her head against Makoto's shoulder. After a while Ami forgot the lifeless expanse surrounding them. Her awareness became limited to just their little circle: the flickering light, the smell of the forest that lingered on Makoto's clothes, the gentle rise and fall of her chest as it took in life and gave it something more.
She didn't mean to fall asleep. When Ami opened her eyes again, the fire was low and their woodpile dwindling. The easiness she had started to feel just a short while ago had also evaporated, the night becoming once again cold and hungry. Ami pulled the cloak tighter around her and settled back against Makoto's side. Minutes fell away into the silence.
"It's so empty." Makoto's voice was only a shade above a whisper. "How can anything grow here, Ami? How can anything be alive so close to it. It's like living in the shadow of death. Even the air feels almost too thin to breathe."
"I know."
"I've tried feeling for it, for life, for anything that could sustain it but there's nothing. Ami, we're the only two living things out here."
Hope, certainty…Ami could feel these things shrinking away from them. Makoto could sense a heartbeat a kilometer away, could find the tiniest sprout in an acre of field. If she said there was nothing…
"Maya said they were here," she said firmly. It was little comfort, but the healer had proved her wrong before. Ami slipped her arm around Makoto's waist and squeezed. "Have faith in her."
"Hmmph. I have faith in you." Makoto picked up another gnarled branch and threw it on the fire.
Ami peered through the frenzied sparks twisting in the air and surveyed once again this place around her. There was a time it was green and fertile, with laughter and voices. People didn't just live here once, they flourished. But nine hundred years had rendered this place as sterile as the moon shining down on it.
And the moon was shining, Ami noticed, just a trickle of it spilling through the clouds, blanketing the ground in white light. Makoto must have felt something too. She'd jumped up and was staring at the ground where she'd been sitting, confusion mingling with alarm on her features. Moonlight painted the stark landscape and small green vines followed, pushing through the sterile dust. Everywhere Ami turned the vines were lacing together to cover the naked ground, a soothing balm on a painful scar. Soft leaves of a delicate pinkish-gray unfurled alongside sweet white flowers that glowed with lunar energy.
Ami's breath caught in her chest at the sight of it but there was no time to spend in awe. A quick thought and a flick of her wrist, the little bone-handled knife slipped through the tendrils woven around her. Just as well, for it wasn't long before careless clouds choked the sky once more. As moonlight gave way to shadow the vines began their hasty retreat, curling and folding in on themselves as they plunged back into the earth.
Ami could only stare. She had barely enough time to register the frantic blossoming of life before this place settled right back into its icy hollow. It should have been a light, knowing that life was just biding its time beneath the surface in this place. But it had been little reprieve, too fleeting to be of sustenance in a place so starved. The taste of life only left her aching with hunger.
"Ami." Warm fingers laid across the back of her neck. "Let's go. We're done here."
Ami turned into that hand, facing Makoto. Her face was hard, her mouth a thin line. But her eyes were soft, giving. A small light flickered there and Ami held onto it.
It was enough.