luckystarely

[luckystarely]

By the Light of the Moon

“Iodas! Iodas!”

Her voice, cracking with desperation, split the quiet cemetery air and made a few of the animals, the only other visitors left at this late hour, look at her; but the person she wanted so ardently to turn around just kept walking. Slow, almost drifting, but still walking without so much as a glance back, until he turned a corner and vanished altogether. Only then, pressing one hand over her mouth, did she crumple back to the cobbled path with a fresh flood of tears.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered into her fingers between jerks and lurches of stifled sobbing. “I am, I’m so sorry.”

The summer evening that had been so peaceful and warm had suddenly given way to a winter only she could feel. The pleasant , soft glow of the city proper seemed distant. It was dark, and cold, and empty. Like a cemetery should be.

“Why?”

Though she asked the question rhetorically, it made her lift her head and look out over the lake, where the moon’s faint reflection rippled. Her mouth trembled, and her face flushed with an emotion she hadn’t expected.

Anger.

She pushed herself to her feet a little clumsily and approached the bank until she was out from under the canopy of trees. There at the water’s edge, she looked up at the silver orb that had always been a comforting presence.

“Why?” she demanded again. “Is this punishment? I have always followed this path. I have always given everything to keep the light in this world alive, to be the hand of healing and comfort among the chaos. You spared me when Teldrassil fell so that I might fulfill the future you have shown me, and I have never questioned that, but why?! Why must he suffer with me? If I have failed, if I must be punished, then let that punishment be mine, and mine alone!”

Again, the sobs started to wrack her body, tears streaming back to dampen her hair while she searched the face of the moon. “Is it wrong to fall in love? To enjoy another’s company, to treasure them? Is love not the purest expression of your blessing on this world? Then why…”

Her voice faded away, and at last she lowered her face and hugged herself tightly around the middle. No. It wasn’t about that, the soft, queasy voice in the back of her head reminded her. She had done this. She had made this mess. It wasn’t Elune’s fault that she had been weak.

“I was so...afraid… I never gave him the choice. I was too afraid of the one he would make, that I would lose him. And all this time, I’ve played out this life because it was what I wanted. He made me happy, and all I wanted was to do the same for him. I didn’t know when we met that it would get this far.” She wiped savagely at her eyes, then spread her palms before her.

“...That I would let it get this far,” she finished softly.

It was terrifying, to have her faith shaken. Part of her still felt like raging, crying, begging the goddess to intervene. Another part wanted to cast off the mantle of priestess, find him, and never stop running. But most of her didn’t know what to do, how to lie in this bed she had made.

She had tried to establish some foundation of ease in the past weeks, toeing the line, setting him up for success after she was gone – but she hadn’t told him, and every day she hadn’t told him, every day she teased him with the truth hidden behind her smile, every time he adamantly, matter-of-factly, so absolutely certainly declared that she was his Only, it had added a stitch to the seam sealing her lips. And now, with no preparation, almost accidentally, he had had it crash down on him.

Wasn’t that the ultimate betrayal?

Don’t say you’ll do anything for me, he’d told her, and he hadn’t even known how right he was. She would have done anything for him – anything but let him decide his own future. And what made her blood run cold and stole her breath like a kick to the gut was the last thing he had said.

You should have let me die.

She looked up again to find the moon, anger replaced with agony. “Help me,” she begged, meekly. “Help me make him see that he deserves to live. Don’t let him suffer for my mistakes. I am prepared to face my own future, but I am not prepared to let him throw away his.” She closed her eyes, feeling a breeze stir her hair and cool her tear-sticky face.

“...I love him. Please just let me have that.”

[luckystarely]

[luckystarely]

“The sun may set, but the Moon will rise in its place, and light will continue to shine.”

[luckystarely]

Sleepsong ~ Lullaby from a Secret Garden

[luckystarely]

Easy to Forget

“Go,” she laughed, her eyes creasing at the corners in fond mirth. “I won’t be long.”

The lingering look her gave her as he took a slow step backward wasn’t surprising, but she just met it with that same smile and a slight shake of her head at him. At last he turned his back and began to pick his way out of the cemetery. Still, she watched him, and as he faded from view, the smile faded with him to be replaced by a thread of pain. She closed her eyes for an instant and exhaled. It wasn’t an act. It was never an act, not really. The joy she felt in his presence was genuine, her sense of humor sincere, but sometimes it was easy to forget. Too easy to forget.

She turned around to face the headstone again and dropped her gaze to the time-worn name etched in stone. He found it strange, the time she spent here among the dead, but to her it didn’t seem unfitting. In some ways, after all, they weren’t all that dissimilar. She just had a little more time in this world than they did, that was all. 

Every one of these names was known to someone, every stone standing as a tangible vessel for memories held dear. This place was a safe haven for those memories, a place for those left behind to come and remember and feel, in some small way, close to their lost loved ones once again. It was a melancholy place, but it was important. And to her, it was one of reflection, wondering. Realization.

Easing to the grass, she knelt before the headstone and brushed her fingertips against the engraving. Would her name be written in stone, as well? Would she have that honor, to be immortalized in someone’s heart? She didn’t seek glory; that wasn’t the purpose of her journey. I want to make a difference, he had told her the other evening. She understood that very well; it was all she wanted, too, and why she had given her life to the goddess’ work and the people of Azeroth. 

She could only hope the impression she made upon the world was anything close to that which he had made upon her.

A fond smile tugged at her lips again despite the wistfulness that came with it. His dry, hidden wit; the earnestness with which he lived; the look in his eyes when they were together. He called her his lucky star, but she would still maintain that it was she on whom fortune had smiled the day they’d met. Especially in light of the secret she kept closely guarded, the only thing she felt like she couldn’t tell him. About everything else, she felt free to pour out her very soul to him. She would share anything without a second thought. Anything but the hardest truth.

Her face fell at the stab sent through her chest. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair to him, to play out this life, to fall into the complacency and selfishness of her own happiness. She cared too much for him to tell him, to make him worry, to hurt him - but wasn’t that what she was doing anyway? It was cruel, too cruel. What would happen when the journey was through?

When she looked back up, she craned her neck to search the stars as if to find among them the answer to this dilemma. 

You are the only one. She had felt the weight of those words, how he spoke them with ease and certainty, and she had felt the chill that accompanied them when she thought of how ardently she hoped it wasn’t true, for his sake. But what was she to do? They were happy. She was happy. But she hadn’t told him, couldn’t tell him, couldn’t bring herself to say three small words, because it felt like a lie - not because she wouldn’t mean them; there was nothing more sincere she could have said - but because she had no rightful claim to say them, not with everything he didn’t know.

Not fair.

Not right.

He wasn’t a plaything at her disposal. She just...didn’t want to take away those rare smiles he cracked. She didn’t want to tell him. It was too hard to think of what would happen if she did. What if she lost him?

Would that be so bad, if it meant being honest? If it meant he could move on sooner rather than later? She had spoken at length of him making his own choices, but there was one choice she denied him herself just by her silence. Could she live with that?

Maybe, if she were really lucky, she, too, could be easy to forget.

[luckystarely]

Azeroth cries in pain and grief, and I am led by the White Lady to soothe her tears.

Elyrianna Silverbranch