A thing. Nora and her relationship with Sorrow, or whatever. Mild kissy stuff.
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Tonight is different.
Nora can't place how, but she knows it is. It plays on her mind as she walks the familiar forest paths with Sorrow just by her side, and as they pause to share lingering kisses in patches of moonlight. Their hands are never far from each other, just a slight motion away, their fingertips brushing against each other or else firmly entwined.
They spend the few hours they have together in quiet conversation and whispered promises between the poetry of new love. Time passes quickly as the moon traverses the sky and much sooner than they would like the couple finds themselves retreating from the forest and returning to the castle they know as home.
Nora knows she should retire to her room and rest for the day ahead, but when Sorrow asks if she would accompany him to his room she does not hesitate to say yes. There is relief on his face as she agrees; he is as nervous as she is, though hides it under careful words and controlled smiles.
His room is familiar to her, as is the way he relaxes his shoulders when they enter. Here he can breathe and she finds she can, too.
She shudders as a hand like ice presses into the back of her neck, drawing her closer before it moves to dig into her hair. Sorrow's sudden embrace is unexpected – the door has hardly shut behind them. Nora does not fight it, but returns it with a press to her toes and a line of kisses from his neck to his lips.
There is a need to her motions, an urgency to the way she clings to the fibers of his shirt and the slender arms beneath it. She wants to hold on to him, to draw him against her body until she cannot feel anything else. She needs to feel his fingers as they wind through the flames of her hair.
It is not a feeling Nora is accustomed to. She is now heat and fire, a blaze so strong it is certain to engulf all else.
Her skin burns and only cools when his hands are on it, running along the lines of her waist and the small of her back beneath her shirt. Consent is given with a nod when he looks at her with a question in his eyes and a hand on the hem of her shirt.
Her heart is thudding in her chest so hard she has no illusions that he cannot hear it, cannot feel the blood as it rushes through her. It has been a long time since she has laid herself bare before someone else and she is nervous now, breath catching in her throat as Sorrow pulls her shirt off and sets it aside.
The jagged line left by a devastating wound crosses over her shoulder and between her breasts. Though it is months old the skin is still pink along the edges and slightly raised at the center, creating a mountain range that mars the otherwise unblemished expanse of her chest.
They both look at it, remembering. Nora begins to blush, reaches for her recently discarded shirt to cover up the reminder of a night months ago when more than one true nature was revealed. Sorrow stops her with a hand that he places on the long scar. It's ok, his fingers say as they trace the line down on her bare skin.
A shiver starts at the base of her spine and she trembles, unable to stop the automatic reaction of goosebumps forming. Sorrow's reassurance goes farther yet as he leans forward and touches his lips to the scar, kissing the damage and pain away. Her breathing quickens as he continues his healing touch, and she wants the same power – for her lips to mend his hurts and ease his worries.
His shirt is gone now, too, after a moment of Nora's fingers trembling as they unbuttoned it and slid it from his shoulders. They hold each other at arms length, eyes searching and memorizing. The attack in the forest left its mark on Sorrow as well – a scar nearly matching her own winds its way across his shoulder. They were broken together, and together they healed.
Perhaps it is that healing that brought them close; perhaps in stitching their broken flesh and hearts back together they were forever woven into each others life. The strings that braid together to form their stories are now hopelessly wound around each other and what is more natural than giving in to destiny?
The dawn is breaking outside as the two lovers again embrace. The sun crests the mountains and spreads its light shimmering over the lake and dewy fields. There are beams that make it past the thick curtains and leave trails of pale morning gold on the floor boards and beams that flash across the wall to throw honey warm shadows about the room.
Morning light is a goodbye – it is a moment in time that is at once beautiful and lonely. It is a parting of ways, an absence at her side and a silence where once there was two heart beats and now only one. The sunrise is an ellipsis, a pause that's continuation races towards the sunset with the speed of desire.
Today, tucked away in the far corner of the room where the darkness still reigns, Nora does not see the coming of the day. She does not notice the dying of the night or the hush of the dawn as the night birds steal off to dream of new songs. Instead all she knows is the man who is even now handling her with gentleness and care. He is a creature of the nighttime, of the moon and stars and black expanses of space between and yet here he is here with her as the world changes from his domain to hers. Together they are night and day, more alike than they are different despite it all.
This morning is not a goodbye. Today is different.
Nora can place it now; it is in the way their hands grasp the others and hold on, fingers entwined much like their bodies. It is the way their mouths part for mere breaths before finding each other again and the way their lips form and mutter streams of loving nothings. It is his heart beat in time with her own, her blood rushing through his veins and his voice echoing in her head.
It is the two of them, together, with no need for goodbyes
Home 
