Hushed Willows I will relentlessly shame myself in rest, in wake, in front of

Note to self: pulling this to present!

Sometimes she thought about leaving.

Not truly, not for any true reason; only the lingering ghost of fear, the urge to break free and run before the storm on the horizon finally caught her. The storm, yes; she sensed it, it was in the wind and under her paws, it was in her dreams and always dancing at the tip of her tongue. He would grow tired of her. He would leave her. But not if she left first.

It was love that kept Reverie among the willows. It was the kind of love that meant she would stay, that she would leave herself vulnerable to this sundering if only to spare Boone that same heartbreak. She couldn't bear the thought; the image that came to her sometimes, her husband waking alone to an empty den, an empty forest, the promise of a future swept away on the breeze. It was the same fate she feared for herself. It was the way her nightmares began of late, the thing that kept her sleepless and frayed, the reason she felt sick sometimes when he parted from her. She would not leave. She would be the one to wake alone to an empty den, one day.

And the fear had gnawed into her bones now, and she did not know what to do. Her family was too far to turn to for comfort or advice. Reverie, in desperation, had taken to a foolish, hopeless endeavor: teaching herself to dance again.

She wasn't ready. Even if she had been, her leg would never work as it once had. It wasn't yet healed but here she was, fumbling through familiar steps of a dance meant to call down the rain. She fell; once, twice, three times. She sat down to cry, and tried again. But in her heart she knew that she would not dance again. Not the way she once had.