My hooves clattered against the familiar rocky pathway that would soon lead down into the high vaulted caverns of the Heart Caves. The cold of winter was left behind me along with the time that was intended to forge a new road ahead and had since failed. Instead of seeking the future, I’d been caught desperately in the past hoping to again find my eyes paralleled by those painted with the oceans blue. The warrior had lingered where others had rarely before been capable of reaching and from time to time I found myself trying to outrun his image in my head. However, like my father, he remained an integral piece of my understanding or more so just the missing link of a mystery I couldn’t let go. Romul had grown tired of my speculations and his irritation was apparent as we returned to the ever-infamous Heart. The cooler months had decorated its warming visage in white and painted the sharp, uniform crags of the cave’s face in lines of frozen, silver ice. Yet, none of that had want for my eyes; only the heated tunnels below could sway my favor until at last I revealed whether or not the warrior had spoken true.

My coat had grown thick since I’d first met the battle-beaten garron and his intelligent retriever beneath the crust of an earth so wild and burdensome, and now I feared that he would not find in me the same beauty as before. But of course that had been a crude assumption on my part… I’d been hoping that the image reflected in his eyes was a true likeness of myself and at first I’d been certain of the fact, but again time had changed everything. It always did.

Romul had moved ahead long before we’d reached the cave’s entrance and though I felt my heart flitting in my chest over an idea that held no permanence, his rumbling in my thoughts made it skip an excited beat. Essetia, he’d murmured not unlike so many times before, he’s here. I paused for a long while before resuming my ascent into the Heart, my breath hitched high in my throat so tight that I feared I would collapse before I’d even had the chance to ask the warrior’s name. My nerves had gotten the best of me many times before, but it was nothing like what I experienced when I thought of the scar-riddled man from the caves. The nights had made me into a giddy young girl, lost to her own fantasies and wonder, and the days were less than forgiving. I had joined the ranks of the Dragon’s Throat and I’d stormed their battlements from the very start. I’d stolen their Sleuth’s position and now I’d returned the victor by anyone’s standards. However, that drive had been born of impatience; the autumn leaves had changed so slowly and the cool blast of winter hadn’t come fast enough. Yet somehow the day had come and his promise had remained unbroken.

When at last the pale figure of Romul’s shoulders and stout head cut through my narrow view, I smiled tensely to myself. I was slow to trail his gaze toward the pair I’d only dreamt of since our first meeting, but when I’d uncovered the courage to do so, I couldn’t help the barefaced grin that stemmed at the sight of them. Again the retriever stood at her companion’s side and again Romul was hesitant to approach; everything was so different and yet so very much the same. “It’s you,” I nearly whispered upon approach. I was so amazed by how sharp the warrior appeared to be now; no longer was he a mere hazy image of the past. He was here, he was real, and he hadn’t lied. He hadn’t lied.

He hadn’t lied.

Everything had slowed and become too surreal. I watched absently his movements, his eyes, the way they trailed the length of my face, and even the soft heaving of his chest as he sighed, relieved. I couldn’t help but smile at his warmth and his excitement, but when had we come to share that feeling of calm between us? When had it become more than an idea, a fiber of truth that strung between us like a promise? I wasn’t sure what we had ever built together, for there were no fortresses tall enough to ward off my doubts, but there was something battling my insecurities… and it wasn’t me.

I could feel Romul’s own hesitancy intermingling with the harsh effects of my eagerness, but I couldn’t yet place a finger on why the young wolf appeared so guarded. His golden eyes were fixed pointedly on the stallion’s retriever and yet there was no malice in the way he received her. However, it was more of an afterthought on my part anyhow… I didn’t care to know the trivial conflicts between wolf and dog, so long as it didn’t come to a battle of tooth and claw. Everything else was menial in my eyes, a sullen image crafted of black and white, while he remained vivid, colorful.

In an unwanted moment of distrust, I was suddenly worried. I feared that I’d stumbled upon a mere mirage of wanting something so badly that it materialized at will. Yet, the notion felt contorted and lost, or just a figment of insanity for the sake of protecting my feeble heart. He was there, just there, and he was as real as the blood that pumped through my veins.

I thought again about Ulrik and I realized just how many wishes I’d spent on him, hoping and dreaming that he’d become more to me than the Engineer capable of stealing me from my warm bed chambers in the Falls. I thought I’d seen a flicker of light in him, a pleading of some sort that was likely misconstrued on my part, but a light nonetheless. Maybe that was a lifetime ago… or just a minute of time so long stretched that I’d forgotten the fine details. Uncertainty was all that remained in his wake, while assurance and a secret promise never to leave, never to lie, was all I saw before me now. Of course, I’d learned that I had my own funny way of going about life and I often saw only half of the circle; not once had I ever seen it completed.

When at last the warrior offered me his heated touch, I leaned into it lightly, worriedly. It was a feeling that I knew would linger upon my skin until I closed my eyes for sleep. It was also a moment of loss that I was certain I would remember when we again parted ways. For that was how all ties ended… nothing was definite in life, nothing was forever.

“Of course,” he’d said curtly, with no reason to oblige me or my wants. He didn’t offer anything more than his touch and his eyes -a troubled blue- to comfort me by. He didn’t find a reason to explain who he was or why’d he come back… Perhaps it was Ulrik who’d been most honest and true. He had revealed more of me –my loves, my losses, and even my agonies- in my capture than the warrior had done in my release. What was it that kept his lips so sealed by secrets? Was it something I’d said or done since last we met? Strangely, I’d come to think that with him I was more than just a child, a girl abandoned by her lord father. Perhaps it was only the Engineer who’d seen me for my truths… not matter how hard-put they were. Maybe I was just a girl trying to fill the shoes of her childish beliefs.

Awkwardly, and without words to fill the silent tension, I turned away from him, eager to lead him again into the darkness of the caves where even lies appeared beautiful in their own right.

She refused, with some difficulty, to face him again. She refused to find the caring in his stare and she refused more than anything to admit that she’d been waiting on such a moment to present itself again. Together they were ghosts nameless and free, but ghosts nonetheless. Essetia had spent too long a ghost in her father’s eyes or perhaps he was just a ghost to her… Either way, she’d struggled to find any good reason to remain so thoughtless -so meaningless- when she knew all that she was capable of doing. Her heart was vast and it forgave, it loved, and it beat with the intensity of her every emotion. She wanted to share it… she wanted to show someone all that it possessed.

But how could she share a heart?

Just ahead, the tunnel opened up into a room bathed in crimson light and natural heat. Lava pooled slowly from a wide break in the ceiling and fell endlessly into the deep chasm of the Heart. Essetia had seen the wall once before, but it had been utterly different. Her skin had not felt warm, but so very cold, and her mind did not thrum so anxiously as it did now. Every nerve ending along her spine, down her legs, and even in the dips of her neck and shoulders felt alive with expectation. In truth, the bay had been waiting for some time to feel such a rush again… She’d been missing it, cherishing its memory.

Yet, disappointment had long since settled her mind and reclaimed her sanity. She’d wanted something more… wondrous? The Sleuth had managed to accomplish so much in her time away from the warrior, so driven as she was to appear changed when next they met, but she had been the only one who’d been changed by their encounter it seemed. Even then, as they meandered into the heart’s womb, the warrior showed no signs of change.

When their wandering had come to a pause, and with the soft red light casting misshapen shadows across his greyed hide, the sleuth turned slightly to study the ocean-like depths of the warrior’s eyes. Her chest felt tight as she watched him, her lips parted and ready, but she could find no evidence of time there. The young bay had aged, she knew. She had grown and experienced so much in the months they’d spent apart… She had lived. Somehow, the notion saddened her as she stared at the warrior unabashed. In truth, he appeared more jovial than she, but less hindered, as if a secret existed upon the curve of his lips.

It was a secret, Essetia knew, that he would never reveal.

From the corner of her eye, the sleuth caught sight of her wolf and smiled absently at his curiosity for the molten wall of lava. The translucent blockade that protected them all from its fiery escape glittered softly in various shades of red, black, and orange. It was comforting to know that it would forever be trapped behind that wall of crystallized stone and yet troublesome. It would never be set free to wander, but instead be forced to travel the same route over and over until, finally, it ceased to exist.

“I missed you.”

They were words she’d never heard before. They were words that were felt deep in her soul until they fissured, erupted, and finally ruined her. Suddenly, her tongue felt numb and whatever she’d wanted to say dissipated into nothing. Her thoughts, a tangled mess of sentiment and wonder, became quiet. Even Romul’s presence did little to bring her back the ground where she’d started to drift away. What did it mean? How could he know? “You did?” was all that she could manage with any confidence. But then it made her question her own desires; it made her question whether or not she’d missed him too. Was that why she’d felt so distraught all this time?

He continued without wavering and without a hint of shame for such feelings, and it made the tall bay feel uneasy. A hot blush rose to her cheeks and a soft smile followed shortly after, but her troubles had only begun, for visions of bronze danced recklessly in her wake. “Then why…” her voice broke quietly as she hedged the very question she’d been speculating for some time, “did it take you so long to return?”