My heart was skewered through when I saw her.

I was just sitting by my favorite sunning spot by the pond, where the river churns into the wider water, curled beneath my friend the willow.
The sun draped aross her mask -- the paint was fresh, and smelled of sweet fruit she'd used to make it. The willow leaves framed her like a halo, like a still-shutter moment as she peeked out from behind a tree. Even though I knew this would occur, I still felt like a star had fallen in front of me, like being struck by lightning from a clear blue sky. I felt the weight of a miracle, something prayed for at the odds of a million to one, hit me then.
I've never been more scared and more happy then to see her there, sudden and impossible, crossing my vision like a cardinal in flight.


I almost decided against it. I almost turned my head, and let myself be content with greetings and I missed you and news and old reminiscing -- I was almost content just to see her again, as I... I never...
I never believed... That I'd see her again. Another lover, vanished into the mist. Another chance lost. Another million moments, never to be repeated -- only to be remembered, endured by my heart for all history. I'd carry her name when only the barest shreds remembered she existed. I was prepared... I never believed...


I'm sorry.
Let me compose myself.


Instead, I asked to speak to her about something important. At first, I danced around it -- I felt I had to tell her all of it. My cowardice, my indecision -- what I'd always felt, and why I'd felt it. Otherwise, telling her, at the... I drove myself through it, my heart pounding.
When she asked me what it is I'd meant to say, I felt silly: I was still running. Still avoiding it. I looked into those bright blue eyes and, at last, I told her what I felt.

I loved her.

I loved her without expecting anything -- I felt sure whatever feelings she could have had died in her absence. Even then, I didn't think she would. Or that a relationship would be a good. Still, just saying it? Just putting the words out there, sure that the fact that I'd told her would never, ever be taken from me? My heart was gifted the sky -- given over to Angel's Ladders and cloud-fountains, to the limitless expanse of blue.
I was happy I did this.

So I was a little off my guard when she told me that she loved me, too.
She loves me. She loves me!

I couldn't help but laugh and cry with glee.


She put it best: this was a blessing. An unimaginable blessing. I felt reversed somehow, like the order of things had been turned around, like the redemption of something long-ago...Like I was redeemed, though for what, I couldn't say. Because she could say she loved me. Because I could say I loved her.
Because, as she leaned her body against me, I could smell again the sun-drenched herbal scent of her fur, hear her words soft as eiderdown.
My love. My love.
My cardinal, come to roost in my branches.
Because we could be together like this, in a world partitioned off by branches. As lovers.



...We spoke a while, tentative and giggly with that fledgling revelation. But mostly, we just sat and cuddled by the waterside.


((A different, more direct telling of these events can be found here. This is the strictly in Seed's head version.))