I was so close to losing this. I felt the breath of it pass me as I knelt, looking up. All of what might have been in one airless moment, and me in my small self, protesting in every way I could.
We are not there yet. For yet one more day. Reprieve, it feels like spring rain on my upturned face, bathing me in the absolution of the action.
I love him, that moon in my sky. I watch him endlessly circle, and I love him nonetheless. I am drawn and I am pinned and I would do nothing to change this. But it is not always easy. The most I can do is fly up and even then, sometimes, I cannot fly far enough to see him, fly high enough to touch. It is a hazard.
In my lap, head pillowed and arms curled around my hips, is my dark as night neko, sleeping. Last night was arduous for him, for he considered leaving me, as well. He did not, but I will never know how close he came, unless he chooses to tell me.
I sit, and breathe, and stroke his hair, and wonder how we got to this point. With everything around me, so very fragile, and me afraid to move in case I might injure this delicate, airy tracery of love between us. It feels too thin, it feels too...insubstantial. Insubstantial as the night breezes, insubstantial as my solidity in smoke form.
My attention draws away, as it always does, to the far horizon, where the statue waits. From this distance I cannot tell; I think he moves, I think he breathes, I know he does not do these things only for me, but I do not know enough of his life to piece together what he might be, when he is not at my side. And I cannot leave, just yet, not 'til my neko wakes and speaks, and I hear the words of his heart. For I love him, too, as much or more as any other, he has been my companion for nearly all my days on the grid.
I kneel, and feel the rays of the darkened moon run cool silver sensation over my skin. I kneel and wait for the neko to wake, and stir, and speak. I kneel and wait, and my eyes turn to the far horizon again, where the statue waits. I close my eyes and breathe.
I love a triad of souls. My neko says it is too much, I must settle. What he does not see is that I have been. The playboy, the fallen angel, the ambassador, the half-Drow, the enigmatic one steeped in fantasy...every other that has pulled and tugged at me, intrigued me, pulled me away...I do not see them any more. I have given them up, for all intents and purposes, because I am making my choices.
The neko. The darkened moon. The statue. And still it is not enough, I must settle. I must compromise.
I sit and sigh in the dark night, and I cannot think of a way to do it. I want an end to struggle and I do not know how to achieve it. I am bathed in thin silver light, caressed by moonshadow, sitting in watch over the neko I love as much as the moon, and I do not know what to do.
At some point...love must be enough. Shouldn't it? Love must be enough. That I love...that I adore...that my heart sings in their presence...
...but it may not be. I will wait, I will try and be patient, I will listen to the neko's words when he wakes and speaks. And I will know how to move from there.
Under the ruins of a walled city
Crumbling towers and beams of yellow light
No flags of truce, no cries of pity
The siege guns had been pounding all through the night
It took a day to build the city
We walked through its streets in the afternoon
As I returned across the field's I'd known
I recognized the walls that I once made
I had to stop in my tracks for fear
Of walking on the mines I'd laid
And if I built this fortress around your heart
Encircled you in trenches and barbed wire
Then let me build a bridge
For I cannot fill the chasm
And let me set the battlements on fire...
(Song snip is Sting's "Fortress Around Your Heart")
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