Echo.

Every time I hold you, I can't help remembering that day.

You know which day it is too. No use pretending you don't. You know and I know and you know that I know and I know that you know. Because sooner or later a day like that comes to everyone, and we -

Not we.

We started that day, but when the day was gone and the sickle moon rode the sky, it was not we, but you. You, and then me left far, far behind. And you left me, you'd left me in the twilight. Oh, why, why? Why the twilight, the hour of mystique and magick? It had been my favorite hour, and yours too. But that day the magick of the dusk turned against me, and I could not fight it, for I was pleading with you to stay.

We had been so perfect. We had been so whole.

Until the day my heart died.

Somehow it hadn't surprised me that we'd met and had almost instantly felt our bond, despite our differences. Or maybe because of them. You - you could only be described as an oblivious angel, You sought the balance, the complement to all things. You could see the ultimate neutrality in all, but you yourself were completely off balance. You were perfect, and refused to acknowledge it. Love and wisdom poured forth from you. You strove to give from yourself, from your spirit, and heal all. All. Even this weak, whining, self-absorbed, pathetic soul at your feet, unworthy even to be present in your thoughts. And yet you healed him, and you loved him. You loved me. And I dared to love you back.

Until the day my love died.

And now you've returned. You're back, standing before me, now in the twilight, as I've just started to turn back for home. You just stepped out of the forest like a spirit, and you're... and you're gazing at me with those love-filled eyes again, and all the ice around my heart is starting to fracture into a million rainbow-bright crystal shards. And I want to go to you, to rush into your arms but fear roots me to the spot. Why have you come back to me? To scorn, to mock me? To disappear just as I get close enough to touch you?

Oh, but now you're holding me and I can smell you, I can feel your warmth enveloping me and my poor dormant heart has no choice. I reach up to stroke your cheek, and I feel you smile and run your hand over my hair. And are we whole again, here, standing here between the forests and the meadows, between the day and the night, between the living and the dead -

...Because every time I hold you, I can't help remembering that day you died.