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There was something comforting about the darkness.
Elias wasn’t sure if that was because he was quite literally a creature of the shadows, or if the darkness offered him a convenient escape.
Perhaps it was a bit both, he mused as he walked through the dark forest.
Still, whereas he had once found solace in the silence of the night he found it now to be far too quiet. The unsettling quiet had kept him from sleep that night and so he found himself wandering through the forest at an ungodly hour.
From between the gaps in the forest’s canopy, he could glimpse the stars gazing down on him with their cold, brilliant light.
He supposed it was a nice evening, the weather was fair and none of the neighbors seemed to be paying much attention to him. That was a small miracle in and of itself.
But he felt cold.
Coming upon the clearing where she was resting, he let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding as Elias approached her sleeping form.
Since the incident in Ulthar she’d been asleep, recovering from the magical strain put on her by cleansing the blight.
It had been almost exactly a week now, and whereas time usually passed by him without much ado, he now found it grating on him. He found each passing day to be an annoyance, wishing that time would simply fast forward to the part where she woke up and life returned to normal.
Tentatively, he reached out a gloved hand, stroking it softly down her cheek.
His eyes roamed over her face which rested softly against a wooly bug. Chise’s expression was peaceful in sleep, free of the anxiety she was plagued with while awake. Idly, he wondered what she was dreaming of. Perhaps she was dreaming of flying again with Nevin, or maybe even of the glimpse of the world beyond theirs she had lead Mina and Matthew too.
Regardless, he hoped her dreams had taken her somewhere special, somewhere she found to be comforting.
Brushing back a few strands of her beautiful red hair, he wondered to himself what his favorite place was.
Elias had traveled quite a bit in his life, never really finding a place where he fit in. Instead, he had been forced to carve out space for himself in the world, a small cottage where he could exist in peace and comfort for whatever time he had left. But thinking about it, he felt no comfort there, not in a deeper sense of the word.
Sure his favorite chair was positioned right next to the fire, and sure it was big enough he could comfortably sit. But with her gone, the room seemed empty, devoid of meaning almost.
How strange.
Perhaps it was her magic, he mused to himself moving to sit next to the tree stump she was laying in. But perhaps it was more complicated than that. Magic had always simmered underneath his skin, so there was nothing to really be gained by having her around from that standpoint.
He looked up at the stars trying to find some guidance on the topic. But the stars were distant and their light cold.
Cold, his world seemed so cold without her. Devoid of warmth he seemed lost in the passage of time, willing it to pass quickly but unable to focus on anything but when she would wake up. His world seemed to have shifted focus, from some unknown end goal of keeping Chise alive to now seeing her smile.
He wanted her awake again, to see her laugh, to see her smile, to hear her voice.
That was his answer.
Home had ceased to become a place, but instead a person.
She was his home.
Her smile was his warmth, his hearth to return to after a day of hardships.
An unnamed emotion slammed into him like a ton of bricks and he felt overwhelmed by the depths of these newfound emotions. He feels them pull at him, twisting him in a thousand different conflicting directions all at once.
Looking down at her peacefully sleeping he lets the moment wash over him, focusing on the memory that brought him here in the first place.
They had been walking across the lake together, him cradling her in his arms, and she had confessed she would stay by his side he felt his chest constrict. When she had reached up to touch him, pressing her forehead against him the constriction had released in a fierce explosion of unknown emotions.
Looking down at her, he wanted her to do it again, to reach out and touch him.
But she was fast asleep recovering and he would not wake her.
Annoyed at the barrier between them he removed his gloves, reaching out to gently stroke her hair. He had heard humans found this soothing and he hoped wherever she was that she was enjoying her time there.
“I won’t leave you either,” he said to her.
No, he would wait for her, regardless of how long it took.