Silverlight Terrace here's to the ones who dream

Beneath the weight of her scrutinizing gaze, Rian felt no fractures form in the foundations he worked tirelessly to build solely for this moment. The realization washed over him as a spring flood, and left him equal parts exposed and validated in his decision to take this leap of faith into the yawning terror of the unknown. He didn't fear her; he feared very little anymore. Each day he woke was a blessing, and if he could share it with the single woman who carried a piece of his heart after all this time?

Well, he would face each and every challenge until she granted him the redemption he desired, but did not yet deserve. 

The softly spoken query hearkened back to a time long ago when she asked him the same and, in a fit of panic and self-loathing, fled from her side in the middle of the night. And she thought him dead. Gone. His eyes sought her own again in a fleeting bid to convey an apology without speaking it, for what good did words do when he could not prove their merit? 

Hydra. Beautiful, intelligent, fierce, and dizzyingly intoxicating in this very second. Would be he could burn alive, Rian was convinced he was liable to combust if he could not feed this rapacious longing! She stood there, still and unyielding as the mountain that reared her, while he fought to maintain his composure in the face of these base instincts. 

But in the Here and the Now, Rian raised his head a nigh imperceptible degree and spent his breath on an oath intended for her ears alone. 

"Yes, I am. I must be for--" you "everything I've done will be worth nothing otherwise."