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[meteorrains]

[It seemed as if the world was spinning impossibly fast, twirling rapidly around it's axis in such a way that made time seem to move much quicker than average. Somehow, without truly realizing it as he had lived it, the entirely day had passed within the blink of an eye. Party after party, all which absolutely required his attendance. Each with a multitude of people who had not seen in years, all welcoming him home, all congratulating him on leading their army to victory. All praising him for managing to make it through a nasty war which had claimed many lives unscathed.

Learning that he was being gifted his own household located in the city as a present from his father had come just as dinner was about to begin, everyone raising a glass and cheering as the news was announced. He had nodded in acceptance, had thanked his father profusely for this grace and generosity, had listened to endless speeches of how lucky he was to have such a noble and wealthy family.

All he wanted in the entire world was a soft place to lay his head, to sleep knowing that peace had fallen over the land, that despite the previous years of suffering, he was finally safe.

Slipping his shoes off, he placed them upon the mat directly inside the door, closing it behind him and moving further into the house his father had chosen. It was well decorated, tasteful and bright, perfect for someone who would soon be searching for a wife. His chamber was easy enough to locate, the door slide back into place carefully. Each garment was peeled from his body slowly, until nothing the pants remained. Something cracked along his spine as he moved, muscled sore and stiff and for once, he wished he had stayed at his fathers estate. At least there he would be able to take a warm bath, or have one of his fathers servants message the area for him.

Sighing softly, he lifted a hand to rub gently at his neck, stretching slightly, before resuming the motion, trying to ease away the ache.]

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[lostheart]

[She did not press her question, once it had been hung, suspended between them in the cold evening air. She would not ask it again either. Whether his silence was refusal or simply a gathering of his thoughts, it was his right. As it had not been hers to ask. Not because she was his geisha - but because she was one of his ghosts.

He did answer though, after that brief squeeze to her fingers, answer as much in the respectful space he put between them as in his words.

She was not sure what she'd expected to hear.

A lie.

A truth.

A denial.

A dismissal.

He gave her a truth.

And her heart, selfishly, fell. She caught it before it could fall far. Chided it back into place for being so foolish, so childish, as to think he would ever remember a little barefoot nobody child out of the dark ash of the past. Of course he would remember the fear and the terror and his mother and the day of death much brighter and sharper. She supposed she did as well and one hand rose, pale, to press light against the center of her chest. Old ache, old scar. Her eyes lifted as well, looked at the village as well. Reminded herself she was here for him, not for her own old dreams.]

It must have been a very dark night for you. Childhood does not forget terror as quickly as we wish it would as adults.

[meteorrains]

[He hadn't forgotten.

Hadn't forgotten her face nor her name. Hadn't forgotten her laughter nor the sound of her voice. The way she looked when she smiled, as if the sun shone through her instead of upon her. It had been nothing more than a silly childhood crush then, something that could never turn into anything. She was a barefoot nobody child who had been born to dirty nothing parents. That was her lot in this life and it was his to be more, to rise above and act as if it all, as if they all, meant nothing.

But they had.

She had.

She was the one who had had looked for the most, the one who he had always asked and requested about. Once, someone said they thought they had heard the name, recalled it from somewhere, but couldn't seem to remember how.

Another dead end.]

No, I suppose it doesn't. [Or as quickly as his mother and father would have liked for it to. They had been the ones constantly pushing him to forget, to let go, to stop searching. Yet he could never find it within him to stop.] There is one name that I have always remembered above above the rest. A girl who lived at the other end of the road, near the forest. I had hoped that perhaps she too would have found a way to escape, but no one I have ever asked has been able to tell me anything about her.

[lostheart]

[She had expected to hear more about that night - or nothing more at all. Prepared to be whatever he seemed to need her to be to coax him away from the last cold of the river and his long day's vigil. What she had not been ready - or prepared for - was

it took her a moment. One of those eternally long moments, between the sound of ice cracking under your feet and the actual realization of what it means, when the hair rises on the back of your neck and your heart skips forward too fast before your mind tells you why. Just one of them but it seemed to last forever, somewhere between the words 'a girl' and 'I had hoped'. She frozen entirely, went as still as a deer in the woods when it hears the snap of a branch under a hunter's boot and her heart kicked up, fluttering against the side of her pale throat as any deer's would. What she had hoped to hear only seconds ago was suddenly a terrible thing.

He had remembered her.

He remembered her still.

He had sought after her, somewhere in all these lost years.

A great wave of something, dark and wailing and lost, rose up inside her chest. He had remembered her. As she had remembered, all these years, him. And he with so much less reason than her to remember. The flurry of it, leaves in a wind, spun through her, almost - happy. Happy as she'd been as a child and forgotten since. Except then the wind turned cold and she remember - it did not matter. Nothing changed. Noting but that her place below him sank to dirt level if she was the girl he remembered, peasant and no one from a dirt village of no ones. Not the shining height of the Willow District and his match in all but social authority. Her hand crept up from the hidden scar to the necklace at her throat with its twin dragons and she was glad her cake paint white makeup hid her face's loss of color so well.

Of course she knew what she should tell him. Leave the ghosts in the past. Let the dead girl lie in peace. Even if she had lived she would have nothing to give you but ash from her mouth and cold hands. No man should be bound to a memory from so many years ago.

And yet she had carried his memory without hope or chance of fulfillment for just as many years. And now look at where she stood. Her eyes lifted to look at him, black pools, empty and dark as the frozen river they had just stepped from.]

What would you do? What would you ever do if you found her now, so many lost years later with the world between you?

[meteorrains]

[What would you do?

Throughout all of those lost years, filled with pain and grief and war, he had always believed that he knew precisely what he would do if he were ever to find her again. That her beginnings did not - would not matter, that she were so far beneath him it was a wonder he could even see her from his lofty status. Even the dirt from which she had arisen held it's own value, if only one took the time to look, for from it grew beauty and wonder.

But then he had been nothing more than a low ranking soldier and being the son of a noble did little to earn him advancement or better treatment, and it did not matter who he would have taken as his bride.

Until he had earned his place and his title and had won each battle in which he engaged, until he became worthy of respect and the honor which accompanied his name. Until he returned a hero of war, celebrated and decorated and now landed and titled by the man who would sooner have him forget his past then embrace and remember it.

What could she be to him now? What would be fitting for him to bestow upon her? A place within his household? The gift of being his maid and servicing a kind and benevolent master without ever truly being free?

Once upon a time he had dreamed of making her his equal, of giving her his name and the position and power that came along with it.

Now too many years stood between them, the entire world as well as class and station. Would she understand how he had changed? How fighting another man's war had molded him into someone he barely recognized? How he was no longer that gentle, soft spoken little boy?

The woman who fate had meant to be at his side currently stood there, his equal, his twin dragon, his most trusted confident and adviser. His life had been woven as it had for a reason, difficult as it was to always remember and accept.

Gaze lowering as his mind worked, thoughts flickering through at lightning pace, trying desperately to formulate the proper answer, despite not truly knowing the honest one himself.]

I am not sure. [It's soft, barely above a whisper.] Once, I had thought that if I should find her, I would take her as my wife, if she would have me. But now I am no longer certain. I already have all that I could need in you.