At last he draws away from her, and she is surprised by how cold she feels, how freshly distinct his absence becomes even after this briefest of touches, this most cautious exchange. The motion is sharp, deliberate, like him. Her eyes fly open, but she does not shrink back; she is learning more of who he is, this brittle creature of starlight and slate, this bewitching stranger she calls her friend. She watches him warmly, something flushing foreign in the abyss of her eyes when her name once more slides off his tongue.
Caneo, her mind replies, and her lips fall into an easy smile. A breath of embers pushes past her throat, lighting the space between them with a cluster of flickering fire. We are not alone.
The glow of her happiness is a steady vibration; it expands out from her core with the force of a cyclone, and her copper form tingles from forelock to tail. She is brightening, literally, the embers of her magic rising up with her hope, circling and flowing like streams down her flanks; they rest in her hair, pool by her eyes, enliven and fade with each breath of her lungs. They make her something ethereal, something alive - and for the first time in what must be eons she is happy to feel - for the first time since Lace died she delights in her life.
She begins to coil her neck back, slowly, as though reluctant to widen the space between them, as though afraid he'll run again- but her face is sanguine, her gold cheeks warm. Her heart flutters like a trapped butterfly, beating relentlessly against her chest, an unsteady rhythm of ba-dump, ba-ba-bump pulsing hot through her veins and echoing in her ears. She feels within herself a fearsome desire to make him laugh, to make anyone laugh, to light the paths of those she loves and sweep away the cobwebs- she feels like herself, and he has given it to her, restored within her a touch of the fire which makes up her soul. She is bewildered and grateful, afraid and alive. She is ready to conquer demons and ascend mountains - if only he will stay here, at her side.
Run with me, he demands, and she blinks, anoetic, unable to do anything but pull nimbly away as his body suddenly bursts toward hers, edgy and acute in the midday light. She hears laughter and realizes that it is hers, bright and deep and bubbling up from some place deep inside, following him even as her long legs unfold to offer willing pursuit. If asked what she'd expected this reunion would hold, tag might never have sprung to mind- but now as slate hooves bite into the dirt she wonders how it could have been anything else. What was she to do if he ran but chase him, follow, her silver mane a banner against the beryl sky. He is quicksilver and she is the dawn, drawing close behind him and reaching out with pearly teeth to playfully grab at his tuft of a tail.
In the back of her mind is a tendril of guilt, coiling and uncoiling in spite of her joy. A question, a memory, a stab in her gut- were it Amaris, would she still pursue? Her brother and cousin wait, yearn for her love, yet even now she runs from them, leaving them in her lengthening shadow, unprepared to face the flurry of remorse and resentment their faces inspire. Shouldn't they be more than this, more than him; the thing that completes her, not what breaks her down? Her heart trembles treacherously with rising regret; she lets it wash over her, lets it course through her sinew and impel her on, until she is flurrying, flying over the terrain, torn chunks of earth marking her passage, sweat falling fast along the curves of her frame. Behind her follows a cloud of fire, embers twinkling harmlessly in the crisp autumn air.
She stops at last when she can go on no more, skidding abruptly to a halt at the wateway's edge. Fire Dancer's sides heave with the weight of her breath, rising and falling in quick, shallow movements; she stares across the water at something she cannot see before finally turning, onyx gaze unfathomable as it soaks in the boy and his wintry blue eyes. "I want to be happy," she confesses at last, the last word lilting as it exits her throat- but her alto voice does not plea, does not lament or implore. It is a statement, a verdict, a pivotal step back from the ledge where she's balanced, precariously perched between hope and despair. Her face is flushed with blood and wonder, quiet resolve and fervent excitement- saying it aloud makes it real, a promise, pledged witnessed by him, but made to herself. Somewhere, far away, she can feel her brother, his happiness swelling like a great gold balloon- and it fills her too so that she laughs again, before stepping boldly toward the slow-moving stream, lowering her lips to take in cool water and reveling in the freshness, the brightness, of it all.
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