Flycatcher Downs I'm a giver

it had to have been a fever dream.
 
the ghost peered at the young woman he had met when he had been only a boy; she didn’t look as though she had changed at all in the time he’d been away. there was a cheeriness that surrounded her features and sparkled in her starlit gaze. she even greeted him as though no time had separated them from their last interaction, and this stung the weary young beast more than he cared to admit. how could she have gone almost unchanged in that time? how had the world not dampened her joy?
 
“maia,” he breathed in a hoarse voice, familiarity sweeping across his features and changing his expression from being dour to being confused and surprised. he wanted to ask her what she was doing there, but it didn’t seem like a fair question. after all, had he not abandoned his roots by the sea to venture inland? was he not the same – far from home and searching?