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In my sleep, I see her.
Young and beautiful, untouched by time, unmarred by steel and sea.
When she faces me, her gaze goes right through me, as if she can see something I can’t. I reach out to hold her, yet she always slips away. Sometimes she vanishes like a phantom. Sometimes she falls into the deep of the crystal.
But when she speaks, oh, by the star, nothing else matters.
She tells me what I must do. And it pains me to no end that I must do it alone. She is gone, she has been gone for what feels like eons. I don’t know how much time has passed, but my hair has grown long and my face rough. But no matter how much time passes, how much I change, I never stop missing her.
I see her in my sleep.
In the darkness, she comes to me. She approaches, she puts her hands on mine. I can’t feel her touch, but she radiates a light, warm like the sun, that illuminates the darkness. She is always dressed in white, like a bride.
The bride she never got to be.
In my dreams, we are children.
We run free in the fields; blue blooms far as the eye can see. She holds my hand and we rush to her favorite spot where the sylleblossoms have grown tall. She tells me her mother planted the first seeds the day she was wed. Like mother, like daughter, for my dearly departed wishes to do the same. She looks as me and smiles, and the wind blows her hair into her face.
In the split second that I take to blink, she bursts into petals, and I see her carried away on the wind.
When I wake on Angelgard, Umbra appears. For the first time in my life, he bears a message not from her. I see sadness in his eyes, and know we are the same: two widowers in mourning, dressed black as night for those we lost.
I make it back to Hammerhead, I reunite with my brothers. Yet my heart is heavy, for I know I will not see her.
That night, when I sleep, she appears one final time.
She kisses me just as I open my eyes.
With that blessing, I fear nothing, for I know I will be with her soon.
When all is said and done, the battle won, I am finally with her again.
She is still young and beautiful, dressed in her wedding gown.
She sits beside me. When I have shown her my final memory from the living world, she looks at me, and although I am old, she smiles at me. I want to hold her, but first my gloves must come off. I reach out, and I can finally feel her. Her head rests against my palm, heavy and solid and real with me, and I draw her closer. She takes my face in her hands and I close my eyes.
Her kiss is sweet, like a spring afternoon. Like a breeze through the grass, like the first snowfall of winter.
And as we part, we grow tired. Her eyes flutter closed, and my own shut as well.
This final sleep may be dreamless, but my greatest dream has finally come true:
To be with Luna, forever.