She continued to stare at the ground, unable to meet his eyes. His words were punctuated with emotion. Was it disappointment? Disdain? Disbelief? She finally looked up at him, and for a moment her own pain faded when she heard the tone of his final words.
She moved forward gently, taking two steady steps before becoming still again. This wasn’t at all like the last time she had crossed paths with someone from her past. The prince of the north had been a stoic mountain. She had been able to gather that he was a man of few words, who rarely wore his heart on his sleeve. She didn’t know if her absence had meant anything. But this stallion? Though she couldn’t decipher his feelings, she could tell her appearance effected him. She felt that she had hurt him. His words stung, and for a moment she allowed her own brokenness to fall away. She wanted to reach out to hold him, comfort him, tell him she was sorry in every way imaginable. It was foreign to her, to feel such a way about someone she, at the time, barely knew. She hesitated, not wanting to advance and cross a line, so she held back.
“I don’t remember anything,” she whispered finally. “But please know that it’s not you. I don’t remember your name, but I also didn’t remember mine. The story is a long one, but the only important piece is that something happened to me. I think I fell, its the only explanation I was able to come up with, because one day I woke up bloodied and bruised by the side of a river at the base of a steep drop-off. My mind was wiped clean. I rinsed myself off in that river, and just started walking.
“Eventually I had spent so much time wandering, that I began to believe that maybe I had done that before. At least, until I crossed paths with a stallion who told me he recognized me, and that I was from a herd up north.” She looked away from him again, and the aching turned into a pain in her heart as she considered her next words. It hurt to think them, and she had yet to say them out loud. Would that make them real? Would expressing her heartbreak and devastation make the sentiment even worse? “The worst part was learning that I was from here, from Helovia. I was once known here. I once had a family, a herd, a life. How am I supposed to feel, knowing that across the seasons I’ve travelled near and far, and not a single person recognized me, not a single person could tell me that I was missing, that I was being sought out, that someone out there noticed my absence and wanted to find me?” She shook her head, sadness etched into her features. “Maybe I was assumed dead, or those I knew before this didn’t have enough faith in me to know I wouldn’t abandon everything. Unless I was that kind of person, which I pray I wasn’t. Maybe I just wasn’t an important piece of this story.”
She looked back at him, seeking out his eyes. She hoped this would be enough to reassure him. When she found his milky eyes, glowing like full moons, she tried to dig deep and figure out where she knew them from. She wanted so desperately to remember him. She wanted to know who he was, how he played into her story. How she played into his.
She was so tired. She was tired of this story, tired of feeling lost, as if trapped on some desolate island a thousand miles away from civilization, and then suddenly returned and expected to be able to catch up. She was losing her fire. The star girl was beginning her tailspin, and could feel herself losing the good fight. Blackness wrapped spiny fingers around her heart and squeezed, attempting to snuff her light. How long should she keep this going? How long could she be expected to live as a stranger in her own world, without a single memory to guide her way?
’But you do remember,’ thrummed her heart, fighting against the murkiness that threatened to stop it, ’just listen’.
Perhaps she did know him. When she had seen Erebos, who told her that he was a warrior, a general, as she had been, she had been enveloped in familiarity. She had smelled the salt of the tide, heard the crashing of the waves and felt the sand beneath her hooves, felt thunder and exhilaration course through her veins. That was how she had known him. But when she saw this stallion, built from midnight and moonlight, what she felt was different. It was gentle. It was faint butterflies in her stomach, a brushed touch upon her cheek, shelter from a storm. He made her think of a breath of fresh air, the beauty held in the darkest of nights beneath a blanket of stars, two comets streaking across an inky sky.
“If it’s any consolation,” she began again, her voice once again soft, “when I look at you, I feel like I did know you. Its hard to explain, but you’re familiar to me. I’m not sure if that helps, but I hope it does.”
She shrugged her shoulders. It was a subtle dismissive gesture, unsure if her words even meant anything to him, or if they just sounded like an excuse. After a moment, she spoke again, trying to move the conversation away from her delicate emotional tipping point. “Please, remind me what your name is. I want to hear it again. And if you could spare the time, I’d love to hear how you know me.”
She still contained herself, keeping herself from moving forward again. Whatever he had to say, however he needed to say it, she was ready. She couldn’t imagine him saying anything to make this worse.
Right?
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[P] Tallsun Kisses & Orangemoon Wishes
![[Image: 5581b91112f69]](http://images.helovia.net/index.php/view/5581b91112f69)
