Stavanger Bay Smoking Embers

iaghe could not have said how long she stayed there, stayed like that. 

eventually, she found that the constriction in her lungs began to abate some. her heart slowed, heavy and weak all at the same time. exhaustion flooded her as the prickling numbness in her face and feet dimmed to a low buzz.

she opened her eyes, disoriented, and kept them away from the woods.

they fixed immediately upon the familiar form -- as ghostly as she was.

if she'd been human, the color might've drained visibly from her face. 

as it was, icewater eyes drank him in greedily, as if he were the air she'd been trying to force into her lungs. disbelieving. 
 
how was it he was still here? 

wobbling, the petrel found her feet. she dared a step closer, nose lifting as she scented him on the air. her tattered auds drifted back, form half lowering with a tremble -- waiting for any sign of the well deserved anger he might turn her way.

there was so much to say. so many words buzzing around her head, thoughts she had no words for. 

no way to explain. to excuse what she'd done. how she'd left.

"andr. real?" the words were a whisper, the harsh rasp a mockery of the musical lilt that had once belonged to her. 

she withheld the grimace that wanted to grace her face, scanning andr's for tricks and illusions -- both of them limned in uncertainty and something vulnerable.