“I watch the moon and let go of my sorrow. With you I feel… safe.” Words rolled from her lips and landed softly on the moss between them. He closed his eyes and smiled. Their hands silently intertwined.
Everything felt peaceful and soft. From the moonlit silver moss below them to the ferns that slowly danced on the wind.
“Will you come back?” he whispered, breaking the fragile serenity her song and the night had created between them.
“I… I hope so.” Agatha shook the braids that always hung in her face, but suddenly bothered her. “I’ll return as soon as I can.” She paused and looked away. “Will you be here when I do?”
His grip on her hands got stronger and his rings started to press on her soft skin. “Every night, like the night before, I will be here. If you do not appear before me, I will dance with your memory. With the shadows and the trees. Wishing they were you.” His voice softened as he reached up to touch the neckline of her dress, his palm flattening on her skin just above her heart. “A part of you will always be here, I feel it.”
For a moment every sound in the forest seemed to fall into rhythm with the beat of her heart. His fingers left a burning trail on her body and her emotions took over. All the moments they had shared, all the ones they wished for still, and all the roads that would close if she picked up her traveling bag in the morning flashed through her mind.
The only thing she could do now was hold him and brace herself for the coming storm. When the last images faded from memory, she lay in his arms under a pale moon.
“I wish I could lay everything down,” she whispered into the side of his chest. “Stop the moon in her journey across the sky just so the morning would never come, so we can stay here together.”
Castor mumbled something in protest. He pulled her closer and lifted her chin so she had no choice but to look at him. His brown eyes were just inches from hers when he spoke. “You know I don’t want this to end either, but this knowledge will help me.” His finger caressed her lips as if memorizing the shape of them. “Knowing that you are alive somewhere, happy and taking in everything the journey will bless you with will keep me going. If the Gods are good, they will see you returned to me, and I will celebrate with all that I have.”
Her answering smile was the shape of the waning crescent moon, even as a single tear slid from her eye. “Until then, we will have this moment.”
“Until then,” he promised.
The ferns swayed around their bed of moss as they silently prayed the Gods would return them to one another’s arms. One way or another.