Mai

You were intimate.

He took you on a ride and back. Yet just as exhilarating as when in his arms you crested, your spirit stayed alight for a while more. Like a comet tearing through the night.

Earlier in the day… As I was out on a stroll… you talked on and on, hoping for the fire to flicker out. To let sleep claim you. You were simply too excited to be by his side tonight.

And he nodded along to everything you said; humming.

“Go to sleep.”

“… ‘M not sleepy,” he slurred.

“You look more drunk than an orc on his twentieth tankard.”

“Don’t want to.”

“We can do this again tomorrow. Go to sleep.”

For a while, he didn’t answer. Then his voice broke through the silence, like a slight wisp in the dead of night. “Tomorrow will arrive tomorrow. But tonight will never come again. It can only pass us by, and I wish to see it to the end.”

You had no answer to that. You could only hope your whispered tales were enough to shroud him in warmth.

Until the breeze whispered midnight in your ear, and his nods of recognition slowly turned into nods of sleep. And when his body stilled, you brushed the hair from his forehead to give him a tender kiss.

It was true. The night could only pass us by; there was no do-over. The only thing we could do was chase the loneliness away with the promise of a better tomorrow.