Romul can sense the retriever’s discomfort and he pities the dog her woes, but his concerns do not go unnoticed by Essetia… and she knows the moment is crumbling.
Suddenly the water feels brisk against my skin as it washes up and over my shoulders. It is like an icy blanket that clears my mind of any belief that my time in the caves could last forever. I hate them for leading me on… I hate them for letting me think they would stay. Romul’s apprehension is apparent despite the fact that my blood is still rushing and my heart is still pounding- is this happiness? I can only watch as the retriever departs, but I wait in an entirely different body… Back in the water, I am frozen, but there on shore I am in motion as I follow the dog toward the cavern’s entrance. Romul allows me sight where I cannot see, and though I can’t yet understand, he holds my heart against his until I am calm.
When I return to the water, I am all but sure… Slowly, the atmosphere becomes cold and unfeeling, just as it had been when I first arrived. The distance between us that was somehow fading has returned and nothing I do to defend the tender bond forming between the stallion and I can bridge the trembling rift. Then, as if I hadn’t watched her go, the retriever’s name drifts across his pale lips and I know that he will follow. I feign surprise as I look toward the shore, counting the seconds until he moves away, surely to be lost forever to me.
Goodbye…
Is this always the word I know it to be? Is it an eternal state of being that only exists in the life I call mine or have the Gods cursed me from birth, a single girl meant to live out her days in solitude…? Or a girl meant to lose herself in the mind of her wolf until they are no longer two beings, but one? I have only questions that will go without answers and desires that can never be sated. I am a lost soul who tragically abandoned herself the day her father walked away from her love of him.
As if it is not enough to leave, I am forced to endure another farewell. His voice is hopeful, if strained, and I wonder what emotions have colored its impression on me. I only nod, my breath hitching on a disappointed sigh, “You must,” I whisper soft and low as if he will be able to hear me above the rushing of the waterfall. Romul does nothing to acknowledge the large brute when he turns those ocean-like eyes to him and instead casts a longing stare across the water at me… I thank him for his attention and he rewards me with a soft, guttural moan. Can we swim? he questions brusquely, Together?
Again I nod in compliance as I watch the stallion as he waits ashore and then I turn my eyes toward the narrow passage that will take him away from me. Yes, I tell Romul so that my focus is only on him. The wolf responds by moving forward into the surf and his nose is pointed upward toward the height of the falls. I watch him -always watching- and before he reaches me, the stallion calls out and I am forced to look up and study him once more. He tells me he wants to see me again. I want to tell him no.
“Yes.”
He asks me if I will return to the caves when the season changes. I want to deny him.
“Of course.”
He says that it will be soon and I know that he’s lying.
“Very soon,” I call.
Then, I watch him leave and I don’t move until he is out of sight. I don’t move until he is out of mind… and yet he is never entirely gone.
I can’t move. |
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