a thousand oceans

He was born in the Spring,
And died before the harvesting:
On the last warm summer day
He left us; he would not stay
For Autumn twilight cold and grey.




She sits alone and stares at the ocean, the memory of lost love painful with the weight of her tears. The golden infinity of sand is warm beneath her, but it is a false warmth and she does not recognize it; her warmth was stolen that day and all that's left is cold and empty. Mismatched eyes of emerald and deep sea are cloudy and distant because her body may rest there but it's not really her. Just a shell, just a hollow, hollow shell...

Yes, yes she smiles, but it's for Him; a small curl of lips, even that is tribute to His memory and she's sharing all the smiles He gave her, wondering if it means the same. How long until they're all used up and all she has left of Him is gone?

After a moment she realizes that she's crying, but she makes no move to wipe the wind-chilled tears away. Tears are pain, and pain is life: what would it be like to be as cold as they are? Would it still hurt so much?

She lied to them. She held her head high and begged her people to continue on, she said that they could make new dreams. But her Dream, it ended, though He was naught but a dream Himself. A living, breathing dream of everything she ever wanted, ocean-deep eyes and sun-gold hair and a smile like the coming of spring after an endless, frozen winter. She asked Him, she pleaded with her soul for Him to stay to the end. It was the most she could ask, after He knew her secret, her fate.

If only He'd told her. He asked her to stop, for her sake, so that she might continue. The heavy weight of regret settled on her heart and she knew that if only she'd listened to Him, He'd still be there. If only...had she been selfish?

She refused, and He smiled and He said He'd stay with her always and she believed it with everything she was. She knew that she'd never be alone again, and even though she didn't believe that she'd survive she knew He'd be with her until the end of her life. She could have given her life to defeat Sin, as long as He was with her when that time came and she wouldn't be alone.

But fate had tricked her and given her a destiny much crueler and He took her place, the willing sacrifice for all the things she didn't know.

She wondered how He felt, knowing that she held His life in her hands. Had He been sad? He was so much stronger than she was. He gave his life for a world and people He didn't even belong to without a word otherwise.

In the end, she'd still given her everything. But that way, it was so much harder.

She never told Him the things she wanted to say. Even at the end, when the dream was fading, vanishing, losing form as the fayth began to wake and forget, she was choked and frozen and forcing her thoughts through her mouth as if they might strangle her with their weight and intensity. She said she loved Him.

But she never said goodbye. She just laid there with the ship's deck cold against her cheek and palms and knew she couldn't let go, she thought that if she held it back it wouldn't be real and He wouldn't leave her. That she, too, would wake and find it was all a dream.

And she realized that she never wanted to dream again. A dream was nothing but false hope, no matter how real it may seem during the extent of its life. A dream would give all and take more, and she had nothing left to give. A dream ... it was another story, and all the stories she'd heard lately were so sad.

Dreams and the waking shouldn't exist in the same time.

She bowed her head and reached forward with a trembling hand to touch the blue, blue water. The color of His eyes. The color and the depth of her tears, the thousand oceans she'd cried for Him in hopes that some kinder destiny would send Him back to comfort her, if only for a little while.

He never came and she thought herself a foolish child for letting false hope, a wisp of waking dream break through her crumbled defenses and attempt to soothe her. Again, a dream was breaking her heart like the violent shattering of ice and she was pouring the melted pieces from her burning eyes to the ocean...

Another ocean she'd cried for Him. She closed her eyes against the pain and let the sobs wrench themselves from her body like new life and knew she'd cry Him a thousand more to have another moment. Just one more.

Return.

She felt the breeze stop like something had closed around her, erected walls around her until she was walled in alone with the frozen weight of all she'd suffered. And she opened her eyes just in time to see His reflection on the surface of the ocean, the calm blue water of a mirror, a glass that held Him captive on just the other side. Her slender hand wavered a moment, pausing just above the surface and she held her breath in as if she might blow Him away on the exhale. She saw His brilliant smile and the way His arms reached out to her as if He'd been waiting for her His entire life.

She dipped her hand, and her fingers touched endless blue ocean.

It rippled.

-fin