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Discovery
For the 'Discovery' Drabble Challenge

by Thalia Weaver
December 14, 2005

Has it really been so long since they have seen each other? Only a fortnight; but the hours have stretched, like putty, on and on and on until grey twilight
seemed to shadow the horizon for all the days...she could neither drink nor sleep but stand by the window and wait; he dropped things and his gaze as glued to the pane, the glass, the sea and the thought of her. Is he really only three towns away, when the distance seems too far to ever be measured? And has it only been weeks since they were married at all? Even now he feels he carries her within him, and she him: they are as much a part of each other as anyone can be, her eyes are his, his hands are hers.

He can feel her eyes watching him as he lies in the unfamiliar bed. The warmth of the forge is nothing to the cold he feels, the distance: the sea calls with
its wishes to sweep him away, to forget his hearth and duty--a favor called in by some friend; and he left her behind! He is callous, heartless, nothing, and he turns and tosses in the dark. She has not lain down at all: the hollows of her eyes match the hollows of her hips, her breasts, all waiting for him--in a limbo, waiting. She does not rise, only watches at the window. They are both Echo and neither Narcissus, waiting one for the other. The other blacksmith tosses in fever, and Will is at his forge, hammering his love for Elizabeth and she cannot hear the striking beats...the ache of their conjoined bond, severed, permeates their dreams.

And the other smith's fever ends, and he sits in the carriage--straining forward, watching out the window for all the hours. He leaps out of the carriage before it has reached the house, as it slows, and runs inside; he only wishes for a glimpse of her, asleep, for he would not disturb her until the morning--but she is not asleep; her eyes are bright and the embrace lasts for longer than the lifetime of the stars, and shorter than the briefest second, and the night is not long enough--and neither is the day; nor the year--nor the years--for she is his and he is hers; here and now they realize that each is the other, and they cannot be apart, not for all the time they have.

~.~

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