Moonstone Quarry [m] snow trickles

His first words caused Fleur to reel back, hurt flashing across her features. Her silence remained and so did the stretch between them. Solharr took a step in her direction, continuing his words as the shock of hers settled, but the longer she listened, the longer she gazed into the eye of the one who held her bloodied heart, the pain melted into an understanding. 

Callyope. 

It was for her. For him. Fleur had never thought that Solharr would ever let the ghost, the memory of her go. It had not bothered her in the slightest—she had wanted all of him, even if it meant the ghost of Callyope would surround them in every moment. The woman had been there before, held him, loved him, and he did the same in return. Had he thought her so insensitive? Had he believed that she would ask this of him?

She met his singular step with many of her own, her breath the only sound as she closed the chasm between them. Her gaze held his as she reached him, her paw coming up to brush away what was left of the debris. Her paw then traced all of the sharp angles of him, the dips and jagged edges of the scars, down to ease the clench of his jaw, and over the softness of his lips; her eyes followed the same paths her paw took before they returned to his once more, a smile offered to balm what regret he felt in leaving.

Solharr… his name on her lips was soft, dipped in the sweetest honey. You have always been whole. I would have endured to share you with her ghost, to sit with you in her memory, if that is what was asked of me. I would not have felt slighted—I would have been honored. The truth of it had always been there, and it was even more so in her words to him now.

I had awoken to you gone. She began to splinter then, cracking and breaking with the weight of all that she had felt in his absence. When you did not return, I thought—I thought… Her words faded as a sob broke from her. She had thought many things, all of which ended in her solitude, and she couldn’t bear any of them. Tears flowed, creating trails of sadness, of relief, to drip down to the quarry floor. 

You were lost to me.