Previously posted on my tumblr (elementalavatars) for Makorra Week 2013.
Rated K. Back to the angst!
Years of separation stand between them; countless weeks without the sound of her voice, too many moments marked by half-hearted hugs and tepid smiles.
It's over. For real, this time.
They never really recovered.
Sometimes, the urge to see her is no more than a whisper in the back of his mind. He survives the day, feeling fine, with only the tiniest trace of emptiness to remind him of what he has lost.
I really like you and I think we're meant to be together.
Some days he awakes to an ache in his chest; its cause known, as he clings to a fragment of a dream in which they never parted. He spends those days trapped in a fog, rehashing each warm-hearted word or gentle touch or loving glance shared between them.
They've kept in touch, just barely. He keeps her at an arm's length, soundlessly celebrating her victories and mourning her losses each step along the way, but when they speak with one another, he pretends each announcement is brand new to him.
I'll always love you.
If she bothered to clear the thin smoke screen between them, she'd find him tending a weary, flickering flame for her, but she always follows the trail of smoke as the wind carries it away from him, never looking for its source.
On the day he hears she has accepted another man's proposal, memories rush through him, clattering against his skull, beating against his chest, and, by the time he gets home from work, he feels broken and bruised.
You never cease to amaze me.
He never stops loving her, secretly, as he watches her from afar.