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☆～ ☆ ～ ☆ ～ ☆
She found him under the dim light of the furthest stars.
He was laying there, on the reddish grass, with the moon peering down at him from behind the wandering clouds. She could see the nasty wound in his right shoulder, blood sparkling and shimmering in the silvery glow of the night sky. She gasped, her small palms instinctively tightened around the inky handle of her tiny pistol.
She came nearer, slowly, carefully, but he no longer struggled, apparently, no longer fought – he looked rather peaceful and content with the very Death verging upon his crippled, broken form. She kneeled beside him, looked at him, through him, and cried. She cried for a stranger.
He looked at her in silence, his eyes almost inattentive now, and yet he slightly frowned upon seeing her tears.
He was pale, colorless even, but she could swear that those eyes were once two vast, sapphire oceans full of life. Beautiful and bewitching. She reached for his face with both hands, cautiously, and when her fingers finally rested upon his cold cheeks, she held them delicately, tenderly, as if she was holding her dearest friend, her one true love. He closed his eyelids right away, as if it was the most heavenly touch he had ever received.
She pinched his skin a little, and he understood. Don't fall asleep, she meant. And so he opened his eyes, but only just a bit, and saw the girl worried sick for him, as she was trembling, nearly panicking now. Leave me here, he thought, but couldn’t force a single word out of his frozen lips.
But she was a one brave soul, ready to put up a fight for him, always willing, always merciful, even though he didn’t know anything about that yet. She took both of his hands in hers, firmly now, and stood up, dragging him upwards with a strength of a hundred men – and he could swear he’d never seen a girl so determined before. So tiny, yet so stubborn, he smirked, just before the penetrating pain wiped that smile off of his face.
He tried to help but couldn’t. His body felt stiff and cold, too lifeless, too exhausted, with his mind too far gone. And yet, somehow she managed to place him onto the back of her massive, black horse – a majestic mare without a saddle and with no reins attached – even with an owner – still a free creature with a free spirit.
She chose to walk through an open field, and her horse obediently followed suit. The man was spread upon her animal’s spine like a bed sheet; he couldn’t move even the slightest bit, thus he couldn’t provide much free space for her to take up. She didn’t mind though, at all, and for that – he was thankful.
How long did they travel, he couldn’t tell, his head seemed to be made of lead, almost heavier than that. A thousand different thoughts raced through his weary mind, and they mingled, and flew one through another, and it was becoming truly impossible for him to make anything sensible out of them. So dizzying. He studied the stars for a second, then surrendered unto sleep, and not long after that he caught himself watching the sky again.
Finally, they arrived at their destination, somewhere deep within the thick forest filled with many dark, deformed trees standing tall above him, like a phantom, like a prophecy, as if his own demons ultimately decided to materialize before his eyes. They seemed to move so sluggishly, as though sank deep within their terrifying dance macabre, foreshadowing something grave and dreadful. He sighed with a tired whistle, then felt somebody’s hands on his waist, pulling him down to the ground, then up again, though with great difficulty. He rested upon unfamiliar shoulders – her shoulders, he reckoned, for he could smell the wind in her hair, he could smell the water. And as she went up against herself, struggling, breathing loud and hard, never once did she let him slip through her fingers, never once did she let him collapse into the dirt of this earth.
She carried him into a small cabin, put him on the only bed in sight, and – before he could acknowledge what was really going on – she ripped his shirt apart, examined all of his recent injuries, as well as the old bruises, then touched the flaming skin surrounding the deepest wound in his chest, her small fingers ghosting, tickling here and there like feathers. He was burning, she realized, and so she quickly gathered a large pile of clothes from beneath the old bunk, went to the other side of the room to damp them good, then came back and surrounded him whole within the tight embrace of the coldness and wetness of her fabrics. It felt marvelous, as if a blissful rainstorm poured down on him, washing all of his sins away.
He looked up at her, overwhelmingly appreciative, wanting to whisper a never-ending monologue of gratitude into her ear, but then again – he couldn't speak, too weak to even form a coherent sentence in his mind.
She was sweaty, and nervous, and very, very focused, and he studied her - just like he'd studied the stars some time ago - thinking beautiful things about her, his savior, his salvation, his guardian, and he was no longer prepared for death. She breathed life into him with her incredible strength, her faith, her bizarre trust in him.
How did you find me, he asked her wordlessly, in his thoughts only, starting to melt away deeper and deeper into the Morpheus’ arms. She was still taking care of him, too busy to look into his eyes, but if she did, oh if she did, she would see him loving her, adoring her, treasuring her sight for his eyes only. A complete stranger, yet she held onto him like he was her lifeline, as she was his.
Then, when he finally closed his eyes, he closed them for good, immediately falling into a deep and curing slumber. He dreamt of the moon, the stars, the wind, and the water. He dreamt of her soothing touch and her remedying presence. He dreamt of being at home, not in the camp, but inside that little red house on the olive-green hill, with a lonely willow tree beside it. He dreamt of his son, he dreamt of his mother, and then he dreamt of all the brothers he had lost in the past.
She didn’t even try to wake him, ashamed of the heavy tears still streaming down her face. She cried, cried like a madwoman, cried for a complete stranger. She remembered the times when no one cared to shed a single tear for her, even her cruel self. Now she had a waterfall to share, the wild one - full of anger, full of rage, full of hatred, regret and sadness.
And loneliness. Loneliness especially.
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