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At first, nothing felt any different. Then there was a tingle. He assumed it was his body responding to his obvious crush on her. Only it grew bigger and spread, like butterflies in the pit of your stomach, except you feel them everywhere.
After a while, once they had started sharing things outside the training mat, something shifted. He started feeling anxious sometimes, without any apparent reason. Then he would glance at her and notice how her lips were pressed together tightly as her breathing grew shallower with each inhale. At training, he would crouch in front of her without needing to be told what to do, and without a glance back. He just knew when she was going to strike and he needed to get out of her way, because he felt her focus growing and her mind clearing as she was getting ready to channel her magic. It was the most natural, instinct-like reaction, even though the very nature of it was out of the ordinary. Sometimes, after Aster Dell, he would spend sleepless nights worried sick that he would never be up to raise Sky and provide him with the father figure he needed, and the reassuring waves she sent him though their connection were the only thing that had kept his head above the water. It was like being hugged to the core in the most intimate way you could imagine.
As it turned out, Saul and Farah were bonded. It was the produce of long-forgotten fairy magic, something that happened only between a fairy and their specialist. It was intense and beyond everyone’s grasp; that is all Saul had been told about it. Everyone around them tried to figure it out, of course, but it always ended with a frustrated sigh and a shake of the head. He was fairly certain that if she could have, Rosalind would have cracked their skulls open and taken a look in their ribcage. He and Farah had both welcomed it without questioning it that much, probably because it had slowly settled without them realising. It could have easily driven them apart, having someone else constantly at the back of their mind, able to read them like an open book, but it did not. On the contrary, it had been comforting to have her with him at all times. It made him feel oddly invulnerable, like her presence was an extra shield between him and the rest of the world.
Then, one evening, something snapped. His breath had caught in his throat as a burning pain had flashed in his chest, making him drop his training sword under Kat’s questioning gaze. Of course, the first thing he did was try to reach her with the usual pull on the imaginary thread binding them together. Once, twice. She had not pulled back, and the flaming ache had been replaced by the cold, numbing ache he still carries today. From the day he stopped sensing her, he clung to the idea that she had blocked the bond for some obscure reason he could not figure out. That maybe she had a grand scheme to get Alfea back from Rosalind’s claws and this was somehow a part of it. Maybe she needed her magic to focus on an incredibly important task and it was too distracting. Or she thought it would be safer for him that way; it would not be the first time, after all. So many scenarios had gone through his mind, night and day, that in the end, he truly believed it. She was out there, somewhere, and sooner or later, they would find each other. There was no need to be an expert in archaic magic to come up with a simpler, more grounded explanation than all those Saul had been dissecting in his tortured mind. But hope is a driving force stronger than reason.
Now, there she is facing him, elegance exuding from her slender figure draped in her blue coat, her hair perfectly pinned up in place, just like the last time he had seen her. He looks at her, his fairy, tears gleaming in her eyes and a sad smile plastered on her face, and he desperately tries to reach her from within. But there is nothing, and he feels himself starting to crumble.
He wraps his arms around her lean frame, letting his head fall in the crook of her neck. He inhales deeply, expecting to find some comfort in her scent, but the only smell filling his nostrils is the mix of damp grass and dirt around them. Again, he tries to connect to her, holding her as tight as he can, as if it would somehow revive their bond. The nothingness is overwhelming. Her warmth is gone. The space that used to be buzzing around his heart is dead silent. Is that what loneliness feels like?
“I can’t feel you anymore”, he chokes as tears dampen his cheeks, a few of them ending their course on the thick fabric draping her shoulder.
Her hands try to soothe him, rubbing his back up and down as she whispers, “I’m sorry”. He knows from the tremors in her voice that she is crying too.
Saul draws back, allowing his eyes to scan every inch of her face. She looks exactly the same as she did the night she disappeared, except for the eery glow on her skin. How he had missed those hazel eyes and the way they light up when she smiles. How broken he is to realise this image will remain in memory form only.
“I don’t know how to do this without you, Fa.”
Farah does not respond, probably because she cannot find words comforting enough to ease his harrowing statement. Instead, she sighs as her hands move from his back to his cheeks, drawing him closer until his forehead rests against hers, their nose touching. His eyes closed, the absence of a warm breath coming out of her nostrils is nearly leading him to fall apart.
The girls had warned him about the magic behind their Headmistress unexpected reappearance and the fleeting nature of her corporeal form, yet he had not expected the amount of pain it would bring to witness actual proofs that whatever this looked like, Farah was not actually back.
“I wish we had more time,” she finally says, her voice strangled.
“So… This is goodbye, then?”
She nods, her cheeks flooded by tears he cannot brush off. One more proof that his fairy was long gone, and this was just a tormenting magic trick.
He squeezes her waist to bring her closer. When his lips find hers, desperation makes the kiss a little more eager than he had intended it to be. He had hoped and dreamed about being reunited with her, but never had he thought that the kiss they would share once they would have found each other would be the last one. It was meant to be sweet and soft and full of happiness, not tainted with loss and heartbreak. It was meant to be hello again, not goodbye.
Farah’s thumbs slightly press on his stubbled cheeks, attempting to reciprocate his intensity. At least, he does not need the bond to know that this is equally hard for her. When they part, he does his best to match the genuine smile she offers him as she takes both his hands in hers. He would have moved mountains to see that smile. Everybody will always look bland and dull compared to Farah Dowling and the little twinkle in her eyes that lights up with the stretch of her lips.
“I trust you to guide them now. I know you will figure it out,” she states, squeezing his fingers. “And…”
He waits patiently, his eyes never leaving the perfection of her features. How long will it take before the memory of her face becomes blurry and he has to look at a picture for it to be clearer? How long before he starts to forget the sound of her voice?
“I have loved you more than I ever said, Saul. You know that, right?”
They were both people of few words, always have been. Maybe because they never really needed to say much, because of the bond. Of course, he knew. He had seen it whenever he got injured. He had witnessed it whenever she tried to cook him dinner and got upset because she burned the whole thing. He had read it in her smile when she gazed at him playing with a younger Sky. He always felt it with every cell in his body.
He kisses her knuckles like he always did to reassure her. This time, though, he has to try to ignore how oddly cold her skin is.
“I know.”
Without warning, her skin starts to glow. Her fading smile confirms that the little time they had has run out, and panic seizes him as she slowly dissolves in purple sparkles, as if she was not even made of flesh and bones in the first place, and the feeling of their hands intertwined is just a cruel illusion.
“Don’t…” he chokes, unable to tear his eyes from hers. As though commanding the Universe to not take her away would ever work. He squeezes both her hands the hardest he can, naively thinking it might hold her back. What silly things you do when dismay takes charge of your whole being.
This is it, then. One last look, one last time. One last shot to find the right words before having to address an empty grave instead.
“I love you” is the only thing that comes up to his mind. Of all the thoughts swirling in his head; it is the only one standing out so clearly, maybe because it is the truest. He says it before violent sobs take over his body and it becomes almost impossible to breathe; before all air leave his lungs and he wonders how he can still be standing. How dull it sounds compared to what he feels. How small and ordinary.
He will mourn the way her eyebrows slightly knitted when she was focusing on something. The way she smirked at his confident boasting and how he felt called out even though she had not said a thing. And the way she stormed off a room when somebody pushed her buttons, ever so theatrical. He will grieve for the person he was when she was around. Farah made him want to do and be better, always. Now, he hopes she knew how lucky he felt to have her in his life.
He looks up at the sky, but all trace of her magic is already gone. It all happened so quickly, he wonders for a second if it has happened at all. The emptiness inside him is telling enough, though.