Arrow Lake abbatia

germanicus did not think he needed to say more, to remind her of to whom they would each return. to whom they now should.

not to duty, not to obligation, but to a future wherein love might exist.

he would never set foot in epoch again. and mereo would become something else than what had been known.

this was a farewell, germanicus perceived, a goodbye that held ramifications so fiercely comprehended that he knew it was the height of maliciousness to continue. the upright and stiff-backed soldier who had been raised with a hundred mores, lifted his arm to fit her shoulders.

it was not a beginning. not for him. 

for a long moment he was still. his heart galloped beneath her listening ear.

"i cannot stay."

he would not allow her to receive another promise. germanicus had found he could not fulfill them. he would make no false adulations. he would not stay in the feral teeth of stoneways he had long traveled.

but in this moment he was only himself, sundered by the final breakings of final things. germanicus pressed a questing kiss to the underside of meadow's jaw, one as unassuming as the feathering touches she had yet given.