every careless word

Koa

Don't you just wanna wake up dark as a lake
Smelling like a bonfire, lost in a haze?

His name is a sledgehammer wielded in her whisper, knocking the air right out of his lungs. "You're alive," he says again, a statement of the obvious and yet so wondrously unexpected that he feels he has to keep repeating it until he can believe it's true. He doesn't step toward her, doesn't sweep her into his arms, though the muscles in his body all scream to do so, ache with the absence of confirmation that it's really her.

All of this could still be a trap, after all.

"I know." Koa's mouth is dry, and the words are drier, still barely more than a bone-rattle rasp. "I was there." I couldn't stop it, rings the guilty verdict that he's hung as a millstone across his shoulders, worn as a brand for all these months. "I came to find you, but he was already grabbing you. And before I could do anything you were gone, and I was in the Wilds."

It had all happened so fast.

He shifts his weight, shoves damp palms into his pockets, does anything to keep from rushing toward her - or worse, falling to his knees in apology. "What happened after?" His eyes rake attentively over her body, assessing for injury, for proof she isn't real. And if she is - what did they do to her? And how did she escape?

If you're drunk on life, babe, I think it's great
But while in this world I think I'll take my whiskey neat