#make up post

Despite her best efforts to keep Anchor from her thoughts, his voice returned to her unbidden, especially during the lonelier moments when Nabi was left to her solitude. When her eyes grew tired from squinting at the parchment in the dimly lit space, her lids grew heavy, and amongst the shadows within her peripheral vision, she could imagine him sitting there. Small flickering motes of light blinked in the distance, much like the ones she’d watch dance in Kugane’s twilight. 

She could feel the ghostly whisper of the small metal bell brush against her hair, and the gentle press of the butterfly pin just above her horn. Just as he’d placed it there.

These moments, birthed by a desperate wish and weakness of her resolve, made her tremble. How many suns? It hadn’t been many, Nabi reminded herself. But it felt so much longer, as if time was stretched beyond its limits in this confined space. Seconds ticked by slower in the dark, away from the warm touch of sunlight, away from the scents she loved, of grass and flowers and sun-warmed earth. There were no songs to be heard here.

Anchor’s absence was palpable most of all, and every moment she wasn’t focused on something intently, her mind wandered to that empty place in her heart. Where was he? Was he alright? Was he worried? Was he ill? Would she see him again?

It was in these moments that anxiety gave way to regret. What if she never saw him again? She had been so consumed in pursuing a cure, did she miss signs of danger that landed her in her current predicament? Was she too reckless in coming here?

Their last words to each other played over and over in her mind. 

“Yara’æ,” he called her. A small promise of hope in the dark. The name felt like a secret treasure she could keep, all for her.

“I love it.” Her heart swelled when he gifted it to her. As it had, so many times before in all the little things he did for her. 

In all those times, did she ever say those words to him? Did he know how she felt? His life had been absent of petals. So many years devoid of color. Has she done enough? How was it that she had never said those words to him?

In the darkest moments when everything seemed uncertain, these were her greatest regrets. That he may never know how happy she had been, because of him. The profound joy that he had brought into her life. The love that had rooted itself so deeply into her heart, that it ached. The fact that she never told him, and were she never to see him again, that he would never know… that pained her most of all.

Nabi pressed her hands over her eyes, to stop the flow of tears before they began. Had she learned nothing from Anchor? Ghoa? Shael? She knew of the hardships they all endured, and even witnessed them play out before her eyes in that place below the ruins. They were so much stronger than her. She needed to at least try and follow their example.

She could not have regrets here. She has to see them again.

Nabi sniffed behind her hands, pressing firmly one last time to dismiss the sadness from her face. She didn’t want Mister North to see her despair upon his return. He too was trying his very best to comfort her in every way he could, staying with her in a place like this. She reminded herself to thank him upon his return. Then once more, upon their escape.