Blackwater Islands the first of sixty thousand hours obsessed with you

mobile post!! i will owe you something with more substance

i was not due back until tomorrow, she said as she warmed under his embrace.

it felt girlish to say that a dream had summoned her back to him. it was more than that, though she didn’t know how to say it without seeming esoteric. the energy of her unconscious had been biding beneath the surface, and its unstoppable force revealed itself in the power of that storm.

the details did not matter.

she bristled, lips pulling back with impatience, then flattened her expression as he began.

i do not believe they ever cared, she replied bitterly. the druids of blackwater existed only to expend themselves in whatever way the listener desired. there was no concern behind their demands. they had seen her value and knew they could extract it, so long as she felt indebted to them.

but she didn’t anymore. viridian’s health had been restored and now her sister was the one acting out the whims of blackwater.

to hear him reflect her innermost feelings felt like being baptized; relief washed over her, and she offered him a soft expression.

i have been gone for far too long. you have done more for me by staying here than i had ever intended to ask of you. you have gone beyond proving yourself to me.

you are my reflection. i came before daybreak to make the same request.

so let us leave, then. to the mountains, to the forest, to the plain or prairie. i will follow you. we will find a place that stirs our hearts, where faint traces of our future reveal themselves before us.

as far as she saw it, there was nothing for them here.