Farewell Love

A scream threatened to tear its way out of my throat as I waited for the dawn to break. It could not end like this—it just couldn’t. It wasn’t fair. As the sun rose on the horizon, its golden fingers stretching to touch my skin, I watched his face. I wondered what I looked like to him, and I felt my eyes widen with each passing moment as the light crept closer to his face.
“No,” I whispered, my voice catching in despair. “No!” I could not take the pressure of waiting, and I closed the distance between us, pushing against his marble-hard body with all my strength. I saw the small, sad smile appear on his face as he looked down at me, his face blurry through my tear-filled eyes. “You can’t just leave me like this!”
I felt a slow warmth spread up my leg, and I looked back, suddenly alarmed. The sunlight had finally broken through the facade of the early morning’s night. It was moving quickly, I observed.
Too quickly.
Panicking, I pushed harder. He did not even budge an inch.
“Why are you doing this to me? Why?” I screeched at him. “Why don’t you move?”
He raised his hand slowly, and rested it on my head, making me pause as my tears streamed steadily down my cheeks. “Simple,” his soothing voice slid across my skin like the softest velvet of shadow, “because I have to.”
I choked on air that seemed too thin to be substantial for my mortal lungs. “Because you ‘have to’?” my words sounded strangled. “Because you HAVE TO? NO! You can’t leave me!” I was infuriated. He was abandoning me because he ‘had to’. How could he? It simply could not be allowed!
“Sssh, little one.” He said comfortingly, wasting time as his demise grew ever closer by the passing seconds. “My kind cannot exist here anymore— ”
“I don’t care! I love you!” I cried. I hit his chest as hard as I could angrily. He just stood there calmly, feeling my fury, letting me use him one last time before he passed on.
“I love you, too.” He leaned down to kiss away my tears, then my forehead. The wintry skin of his arms wrapped around me, making me shiver one last time. I buried my head in his shoulder, trying not to sob. I could feel the warmth completely on my back now, and I clung to him, as if he were my last lifeline.
He had saved me, and now it was his time to go.
“I love you, my dearest.” His voice sounded like silken wind chimes, and he pulled me away from himself just far enough to kiss my lips, and whisper against them, “I will never forget you…” his cool breath made me realize that this was my last moment with him.
My tears streamed down my face, breaking down every mask I had ever worn in front of him. He had revealed so many things to me, taught me what love truly was.... The river coming from my eyes dishonored those memories, and I finally said the only words left that could break my shattering heart:
“And I will never forget you, my knight, my heart,” I kissed him softly, “my love. I will never forget you.”
My vow hung in the air around us like the shimmering wings of hopeful butterflies, wrapping us in our love as if we were the only ones who existed in that moment.
No more words were said as I held back my tears for him. I met his eyes one last time, daring one last glimpse at his soul before he was gone from me. A choked sob made its escape from my heart, and I ducked my head, hiding in shame. I felt his skin gently touch my chin, as he tilted my head skywards, closing my eyes as he granted me one final gift. An immortal kiss.
His lips rested against mine, and I felt the sudden bloom of daylight overtake our small piece of Heaven.
His arctic skin grew swiftly warmer till I felt as if I’d burned my lips, but I didn’t dare open my eyes. I just grasped him tighter, even though his body was burning in our embrace.
Just when I thought I could not stand the smoldering blaze any longer, he sighed, and my flesh tingled where he had touched as he faded, and fell from my arms. I was holding air when I finally opened my eyes, my heart still clinging to the memory of his kiss.
I looked down at my feet, and gasped. All that was left of the man that I had loved was a thin layer of ash. No, a layer of moon-dust, I told myself. Just a layer of silvery, magical moon-dust. I leaned down and gently brushed my fingers against it, feeling the soft texture of the silken powder as a delicate breeze lifted the last evidence of his existence into its care, taking the fine film that coated my fingers with it.
I lingered there, watching the best part of my life drift away into the sky, still refusing to cry so as not to discredit his last moments in my memory.
Finally, I turned away from the broken, splintered pieces of my soul. I paused before going inside, and whispered one last thing to the wind.
“Farewell.”
Then I left my past, my heart, and my love behind me.