She had seen him, of course she had. She didn't know when he'd arrived, but she had been watching him for most of the night. The first sight of him had taken her breath right from her gurgling lungs and she'd had to duck into the shadows, lean against a wall to try to keep her legs under her as they shook, her heart hammering in her ears.
She knew he would be here. Had hoped he wouldn't be. Knew he would like a moth to flame. Only no, this would not singe his wings but he would dance with them. It was his element, a time like this, where he belonged. So she had known and yet--
The shock of it-- How he looked-- As he had, as she remembered him in her dreams and nightmares. Did he somehow use a potion, too? And why? Was it to dance with others? To remember what it was to live again? Was he not as desperate as she expected? Or is she just a fool again, caught in his presence, thinking too much of herself.
She had even seen him with a guitar-- but hadn't been able to hear him play, like a coward had run from it.
And here she was a coward even now.
What she was here to do was to set things right. To make them better. To be how they should. But perhaps it wasn't needed at all...
That thought alone bouyed her.
So she pushed back the fear and the anger and the other things knotting in her throat, and the sharp, heightened awareness that she was being twice a fool for using the potion in the first place-- She was an old woman, not someone young and fresh and he would see through it.
But she would suffer that. She would learn her lesson this time. Close the book on it.
So it is time...
She moves from the shadows where she knows he will catch his eye.
Her plan was to go up to him, to face this head on, but as soon as he catches her, expression lost behind the mask, some other part takes over.
She says nothing, gives him a long glance over her shoulder, feeling the earring whispering against her skin, and then moves a bit further into the crowd. It is an old game. Their old game with unspoken rules.
But she is sure that she won't be followed and that in and of itself is an answer to a question.
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She had seen him, of course she had. She didn't know when he'd arrived, but she had been watching him for most of the night. The first sight of him had taken her breath right from her gurgling lungs and she'd had to duck into the shadows, lean against a wall to try to keep her legs under her as they shook, her heart hammering in her ears.
She knew he would be here. Had hoped he wouldn't be. Knew he would like a moth to flame. Only no, this would not singe his wings but he would dance with them. It was his element, a time like this, where he belonged. So she had known and yet--
The shock of it-- How he looked-- As he had, as she remembered him in her dreams and nightmares. Did he somehow use a potion, too? And why? Was it to dance with others? To remember what it was to live again? Was he not as desperate as she expected? Or is she just a fool again, caught in his presence, thinking too much of herself.
She had even seen him with a guitar-- but hadn't been able to hear him play, like a coward had run from it.
And here she was a coward even now.
What she was here to do was to set things right. To make them better. To be how they should. But perhaps it wasn't needed at all...
That thought alone bouyed her.
So she pushed back the fear and the anger and the other things knotting in her throat, and the sharp, heightened awareness that she was being twice a fool for using the potion in the first place-- She was an old woman, not someone young and fresh and he would see through it.
But she would suffer that. She would learn her lesson this time. Close the book on it.
So it is time...
She moves from the shadows where she knows he will catch his eye.
Her plan was to go up to him, to face this head on, but as soon as he catches her, expression lost behind the mask, some other part takes over.
She says nothing, gives him a long glance over her shoulder, feeling the earring whispering against her skin, and then moves a bit further into the crowd. It is an old game. Their old game with unspoken rules.
But she is sure that she won't be followed and that in and of itself is an answer to a question.