Blackfoot Forest somewhere inside, I hope you still see me just the way I was before I walked away

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Her legs froze like a creature of ice for every fraction his eyes widened. She couldn't look away - and, so it seemed, neither could he. Their silence stretched, and the forest, so frequented by the shrieks and wails of the foxes who lived here, seemed to deaden. Nanook did not register the time that passed, whether seconds or minutes or hours or years, for her mind busied with her more pressing concern: what to do with the crack his ghost nailed against her floodgates; how to hold back the waters that pushed against the thinnest walls of the heart he'd helped to freeze.

And he ran to her, and she did not move because she could not move, and the touch of his chin upon her head, his softest utterance, they consumed her like a dream - I've missed you - you've grown - I've missed so much -

I'm sorry -

And as he pulled away, fixed her with those words, and reflected his heart upon his lips in the slightest curve and fall, the ice dislodged, and wave after wave crashed over the Apaata, and she remained frozen, unable to speak. Unable to move, to say I missed you. I missed you. He missed her - He loved her.

The thought tipped her headfirst, and her movement came in a heavy and consuming shiver that heaved her shoulders uncontrollably, and wretched hot and ugly tears down her cheeks.