Paradise Found

ashe They may say, "You're too small, you're too young to do it all," But you're a giant on the inside. They may say, "It's not enough, leave your dreams collecting dust," But there's a fire that you can't hide. She watched him speak, took him in, and it hit her again all the time that was lost. My fault. If she had just gone to him with that arrow in the first place, he probably would have shown her the spot he was talking about. Where would she be now? What if, what if, what if. It was staggering how often she was asking herself that lately. Ashe glanced away from him and to the trees surrounding this tucked away place of beauty, something heavy settling in her chest. What if. At the flicker of movement, the assassin looked back to see Kalt carefully approach her once more. Every muscle coiled, but he took her hands and smiled. She couldn’t muster one back as her heart thudded powerfully in her chest, only looking up with round eyes to Kalt. ”What are you afraid of?” She froze, scarcely daring to breathe as he tucked erent hair back from her face, and she glanced down to where her small hand was held by his. ”I’m not afraid,” she said stubbornly. Her brows pulled together as she worried her lower lip in her teeth, painfully aware of how close he was. How far away he was. ”I’m not,” the wolf insisted, and she flicked a glance up at him. She moved to step back again, turn away, but her hand squeezed his fingers as she moved. As she stepped away, she still held onto him, looking down to where her fingers held tightly to his hand. What was she afraid of? ”I can’t,” she said quietly, fire-blue eyes still resting on their hands. Ashe took a subtle and slow breath - in through her nose and out through her mouth. ”My family.. I’ve done enough, no matter how much I want to - ” She broke off abruptly as her stomach flipped, eyes glancing up at him and back to their hands. She was trying to do better, like her mother had told her, part of doing better was suffering her consequences. I don’t deserve to have what I want, I don’t deserving to have y- She finally broke away from Kalt and approached the water’s edge, listening to the birdsong and moving water as she gazed down at the reflective surface. Every move she made directly defied her proclamation of not being afraid, but she pretended for all the world that she wasn’t resisting powerful impulses regarding Silver Wing. ”They know as well as I do that all of it was my fault, I fucked up too many times,” she said as she looked into the pool of water. ”So I can’t.” Can’t what? she asked herself. She didn’t even know what this was yet. She knew what she wanted. And she knew what she could not have.