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He found her in an oasis of pale moonlight. All were fast asleep, save for her. Her white blouse was loose around her frame, cotton-soft, sweetly frilled. The moon lent it some of its borrowed light, and so, Maelle shone. It was only natural that she should guide him back to their resting spot after he'd had enough of his lonesome pilgrimage to his lost self, wasn't it?
Verso didn't have to put on a smile. It came naturally. He alerted her to his presence with a soft 'hey,' the grass crunching beneath his boots.
Maelle barely glanced back. "Hey," she mumbled. Her attention was focused on her right hand, which she gripped with her left. Now that he was closer, he noticed that the pad of her forefinger was bleeding.
"You've cut yourself," he observed with concern, sitting beside her on her sleeping bag. She'd made space for him. He hadn't even questioned it when she'd slid to the side. Of course she'd accommodate him. She always did. "Does it hurt?"
Shrugging, her gaze fixed to the droplet of blood rising in a perfect, rounded shape from the tip of her finger, scarlet, glowing, also bathed in moonlight, she said, "I did it on purpose." When he furrowed his eyebrows in confusion, she continued in way of elaboration, "Cut myself."
She observed him keenly, making note of the exact moment confusion gave way to understanding; and understanding, to worry. She liked it when he worried. She always needed someone to worry. Verso wondered if she knew this about herself.
Still, Verso humoured her. Perhaps he liked worrying about her, too. "Why?" he said softly, curious in tone, never intending to make her cower behind self-justification and defence.
In a confessional whisper, eyes locked with his, Maelle said, "I had a nightmare again. A bad one. Much worse than what I've become used to."
Not daring to abandon her, even by gaze, he maintained eye contact. The lower she spoke, the lower he did, too, as though vulnerability only came when clothed in hushed voices that'd barely escaped the mind's restraints. "What was it about?"
"You," she said, so, so quietly. "Me. Only you were suffering in front of me and I couldn't do anything about it. I think you were suffering because of me. I tried to save you, but it only made things worse. Every part of you that I touched bled and bled and bled. There was so much blood, because I couldn't just leave you there. I kept touching you, kept dragging you, and you kept bleeding. When I finally realised that the kindest thing I could do for you was to leave, you... you burnt. You caught fire and you burnt."
Verso didn't say a thing. Didn't move.
Maelle faced forward, downward. "Then I woke up, but I couldn't shake it off. The image of you bleeding and burning. I... I had to distract myself."
His hand was warm and gentle when it took her right hand. He raised her injured finger to his lips, a sudden warmth, a confusing electricity, and then wetness where he'd licked at her finger pad. The taste was metallic in his mouth. He made no show of it.
But Maelle was touched, and the part of her that had remained intact was now broken. She looked at him with wide, doleful eyes. They were full of exhaustion, full of plea.
Before he could make sense of it, her lips were on his.
He didn't react at first. Couldn't.
How could he admit that something within him had settled then? That he felt alive again, warm again?
He couldn't.
Verso pulled away before the kiss could become anything more than a chaste impression of lonely lips upon lonely lips. He had the look of a stern, regretful man who was bound to forever deny his wants in the name of honour and duty.
"Maelle," he said hoarsely. "It's not right."
Her voice almost broke his heart. So reedy, so breathy, so alone. "Please comfort me," she whispered, chasing his lips with her own. Flesh barely caught onto flesh before he turned his face to the side. "Please comfort me, please." Another attempt, another almost-kiss. "Please, please, please."
Their lips met, the kiss short, the sound a resounding smack.
Gathering the remnants of his resolve, Verso tilted his head upwards, and he gave her a kiss, a good, long kiss, only on her forehead. Her eyelids shuttered closed, and a tear fell from either eye.
Then he left her cold, stood to his feet, and abstained from the sight of her.
"I..." he began, but couldn't find his words. So he sufficed with a rough, "Goodnight, Maelle."
It was an act of kindness. An act of care.
If only it didn't have to be so cruel.