pour one out for our ghosts

There's gonna come a day when you'll feel better
You'll rise up free and easy on that day

The hand on your knee brings you back from your wanderings, an anchor to reality and the regrets for what you've done. You hadn't meant to scare her, hadn't wanted to make her look at you the way she had. But you'd been sad, so desperately sad, the reason why slipping through your fingers like a half-remembered refrain. Rain, rain, go away....

Rain rain.

Rayne?

Oh. Ray.

She's talking about kissing you, about getting water, but your don't hear it. You're staring at your hands, hands that held him yesterday, or so you could swear. But it's impossible, isn't it? It must have been a dream. And yet as you open and close your fingers you can feel him against them...

"Hmm? Oh. Yeah." Abruptly you rise up to your feet, stomach lurching. Extending a hand for Vai to grab, you prepare to help her from the dock. "An' breakfast. Safrin's tits, I could eat a rhampire."

As she rises you draw her toward you, keeping her hand if she'll allow. "I meant it, y'know," you murmur absently, looking at the sky and the clouds but speaking to her. "The sweet things. Doesn't mean... You don't gotta say anythin'. But I meant 'em, Vai. I got a lotta regrets, but I don' regret that."

And float from branch to branch, lighter than the air
Just when that day is coming, who can say?

zephyr