AN: This came out of nowhere, but I started writing and couldn't stop. It's more poetic than my other stuff, but I personally think I'm better with this kind of writing, anyway. (As always, thank you to anyone that's reading- those reviews seriously make my day).
There's a magic in her silence, in the simple fact of her existence. Her presence is a miracle in his mind; he will never understand what he did to deserve her. To him, she glows; his eyes find her too bright for this world.
He maps her like he once did the stars, finding the mountain ridge of her bones and uncovering the rivers that flow from her eyes. She is brighter than any constellation, gentler and harsher than any ocean, and there is beauty within her unlike any he's experienced in his many, many years. She rises over him like the tides, crashes over him like the strongest wave. He is shipwrecked; both lost at sea and rescued to shore every time their gazes lock.
Her touch presses fulfillment into his once hollowed bones; he loves her palms and her lips, the tight curl of her fingers and the way her smile whispers home.
And he loves her.
He loves her so much that he feels it, always there, a tangible pressure on his chest, a fire deep in his abdomen when he hears the lilt of her laugh or sees the curve of her smile. He can taste the laughter on her tongue, and there's a dizziness that makes him feel tipsy; drunk off of her grin, off of the gleam in her green, green eyes.
He loves her so much that it makes him better, makes him want to be better. She blinks those eyes and he wishes to rid her of anything that's ever caused tears to pool there. He wants to hold the world to its absolute best merely for her sake.
He loves her so much that he finds salvation, tucked into the words that fall from her lips and folded into the palms that she presses against his chest. And anything he ever found beautiful about the sea is there in her eyes; despite being green, they only ever remind him of rising waves. She is as vast as the ocean herself, and he wants to know those depths. All his life spent as one with the sea, but he looks at her and he's drowning. He would give his ship away a thousand times over if it meant she would be safe, if it meant she would be happy.
He loves her so much that it makes him selfless and devoted, and he is every bit the man Liam always hoped he would be. He is every bit the man he wanted himself to be, the man he could have been if not for getting lost along the way. But he would walk the broken path all over again if it meant he would be able meet her once more.
He loves her so much that he'd do whatever she asked, would always make good on his promises. He would chase the earth to its end or follow time to its breaking point. He would face any darkness, traverse any realms, overcome any obstacles if only for the sake of that smile which makes his heart seize. Her happiness is the world, and it fills the space in his once-punctured heart.
He loves her so much that he wants to live in her world, wants to adapt to their customs and strange little traditions, is willing to learn whatever she's willing to teach. He wants to know her, to uncover the full truth of why she is the way she is. He wants to find the reasons for her smiles, wants to understand exactly what it is about the rain that forms that calm, serene expression on her face. She fills him with a kind of empathy he has not felt in a long time, and it makes him want to understand; he would gladly spend forever trying to understand.
He is maddeningly in love with her. She is the reason he often cannot sleep at night, haunted by the ghost of her hands; but when she rests beside him, the rise and fall of her breath is all the lullaby he needs. On those nights, he breathes in and feels her deep in his lungs; the way she soothes the ache in his chest. His heart beats her name, and there's a smirk on her face as if she knows it; as if she can hear the sound of his love.
As for him, her sound is a siren's song, calling him to the rocks. He knows he will never be the same after loving her. It is not like the first time he loved- she is not like the first time. She is light and air and devastating hurricanes, filling and emptying him with the power of her storms. She is everything right, everything meaningful; she is everything.
He had been numbing the pain of his loss for so long that he'd forgotten how badly it could bruise. But losing her -constantly losing her- ripped him from the inside out. He thought he would not survive losing her permanently; without her, he is adrift, drowning, and nowhere to be found.
He will love her for all of his life, and if there is time after that, he'll love her then, too.
She chases away the dark just with her smile; he couldn't remember the light until the day she held a dagger to his throat.
From that moment, he quickly learned that the sun is blonde and green eyed and fierce;
that the stars hold a sadness deep in their bones, yearning for a family;
that the light is brighter and stronger than any magic he'd ever dealt with;
that the light is named Emma, and she floats like a swan.