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In Tanith’s dream, there are lights.
Too many to count, dancing on an ocean, too vast to envisage. Each one is a brilliant soul, each one unique. She wishes she could reach out and touch one, touch heaven.
And then she is being lifted up, far into the sky, and her tousled hair meets the bonny wind, and she is glowing like the balls of light around her.
And there he is, as she knew he would be.
He’s not alive, of that she is certain. But he isn’t dead, either. He is just Ghastly, nothing else matters.
And they are meeting again finally, after so many years forced apart.
And when the wind carries them to each other Tanith reaches out hesitantly, in case this isn’t real, in case he isn’t real. But their hands brush, actually touch, and the touch is a new kind of energy, a magic that she needs to keep going until their next chance to touch again.
And then they are embracing, and she is sobbing, and they hold each other tightly like they never had a chance to. His embrace is stronger then anything Tanith has ever known, warm and comforting and just like it had always been, like she’d forgotten it felt.
In that moment of feeling so close she is awake somehow, despite being asleep, and she is more alive then she has been in so long.
Surely they can stay like this, wrapped in each other’s arms. Surely the universe is not cruel enough to keep them apart after so long, kind enough to let them stay together. Even for a few moments longer.
Tanith kisses him deeply just in case, a promise of forever, despite being worlds apart.
And then Ghastly offers his hand and she takes it, and they begin to dance, dancing through the glowing balls of light and above the clouds, above the sky even.
The breeze whips Tanith’s blonde hair, every hue from white-spun sun to golden browns, all married into long flowing locks that tousled in the heavy wind. Ghastly brushes the hair off her neck, holding her waist gently. She leans against him, closing her eyes, and runs her fingers over the scars that adorn his features. His scars, deep ridged curves in his skin, are trails to a better future, a road map of survival and triumph, a story that can bring pride and shame and inspire others.
She notices that his chest doesn’t move with breath like those of the living, but his eyes are alive and twinkling, and that is all that matters.
Their dance is one of healing, one thats speaks in the language of emotion, a language that is so much more ancient then words.
And they fall as they dance,
falling from the sky
and through many miles of clouds,
descending back to the world that they know as home. To the world that isn’t home without him.
The glowing balls of light accompanying them as old friends, as Anton and Larrikin and Kenspeckle and Saracen, and they watch the two retreat out of the heaven that is the sky.
And then Tanith awakes from her dream, and she sits up in her bed. Slowly she sighs as she remembers what is reality and rubs her eyes, pulling her soft sheets around her.
She looks out the window, out into the dark night. And at the glowing balls of light that are the stars.
She remembers the time they sat on the roof of his shop and watches the stars together, sipping tea and telling funny stories. She gazes at them wistfully, and smiles softly.
She will see him again in her dreams.
In the sorrow of death is the proof of love, of the bonds that exist beyond our reality beyond the matter and energy that makes our world real, to where we can meet those we love again.
To where they’ll be waiting.