With every broken bone, I swear I lived
"Oh, is that so? I'll have you know, you're about to back right off the path. A little to the left - a bit more - there you go. Now watch out, it's starting to go downhill..."
Her laughter joined his as she guided him down the path, calling instructions and teasing him with threats of more apples added to the swirling array. Their voices echoed against the empty barn and the dilapidated ruins of what had once been a well kept and beloved home, and for a moment it did not seem quite as forlorn as it had when they arrived.
Maea paused only for a moment to look back at the house where she had grown up. It looked nothing like it had in her memories; but then again, neither did she. And for all that the orchard was overgrown and the fields lay fallow and abandoned, they were still there. She found a quiet comfort in that; to know that even if too many things had changed, there was still something left to go back to, if only just for a little while.
And Harper liked the taste of the apples she had helped to raise. That alone made the soft ache of melancholy worth bearing.
{FIN}
Her laughter joined his as she guided him down the path, calling instructions and teasing him with threats of more apples added to the swirling array. Their voices echoed against the empty barn and the dilapidated ruins of what had once been a well kept and beloved home, and for a moment it did not seem quite as forlorn as it had when they arrived.
Maea paused only for a moment to look back at the house where she had grown up. It looked nothing like it had in her memories; but then again, neither did she. And for all that the orchard was overgrown and the fields lay fallow and abandoned, they were still there. She found a quiet comfort in that; to know that even if too many things had changed, there was still something left to go back to, if only just for a little while.
And Harper liked the taste of the apples she had helped to raise. That alone made the soft ache of melancholy worth bearing.
{FIN}
maea
