5 – 3

I dream of Clarke and Edith, as I have done each night since we performed that great work of magic those few days ago. This bond of gossamer thread, weaving around and through our very souls, creates a vague and comforting dark in which we dwell together. It is a warm, entwining closeness. Edith presses against me, showing me what all of how she feels: satisfaction in the day's work, weariness from the same, and a lingering fear for her grandmother's health. Clarke's reassurance comes down the threads as a cool press of lips to a heated, furrowed brow. I recall the keen gleam in the old pillar's eyes as she oversaw the distribution of the stew, how she stood as straight and tall as one of her years could, and the ruddy health of her skin in the light from the coals.

Edith's glad response to that is like a slow, gentle slide of her calloused palm along my jaw. Were I awake, a shiver would travel through my limbs. The feeling her touch gives me, whatever name it holds, is wondrous. Her dry, affectionate amusement is woven into that molten, langorous sprawl. Clarke's threads rattle, sparks of envious longing shining in this warm, entwining dark. There's no place here for shame or reservation. Why would any of us feel thus, in this place we made for ourselves? Clarke's yearning for the wondrous feeling that settles with a heavy, draping looseness into my bones is understood and accepted.

That dry, amused affection increases as Edith reaches down the joining of their threads. I see the shape of how she would create this feeling in Clarke. It's a memory of a moment, of fingers sliding through strands of ink-dark hair, of brightly amber eyes locked with blue, of warm, heaving breaths on open mouths. A promise, given without a word:

I am here. I am here with you.

My promise.

Clarke denies it, pushing the touch away before it could begin. No insult is given, nor taken. She wants it, but not from Edith. Joy rises from my heart like the sun. I reach for her. She comes to me. Edith's laughter rolls like a musician's drum from her threads to ours. I smother her sparks of envious longing and let the waves of my own yearning attraction lap across our entwined threads. It isn't the same, I think, but it's enough to satiate Clarke. She luxuriates in it, and shows me a garden as-yet ungrown. In it are the planted seeds of a feeling she believes could be the same, yearning desire for me. It's as close as she has ever come in all the years of her life.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

Because of that, she's uncertain, and I haven't a shred of blame to give her for it. This new matter of the heart has and continues to confuse me, as she knows full well by now. Even a wise and intelligent magi such as she can have their mind upended by the tumult of it all. Her uncertainty drifts to Edith, flotsam bobbing along the stream of her threads, asking the most experienced of us all to help make sense of it all.

She tries. We all do. As closely bound as we are, with all the knowledge we can bring to bear, we try. It becomes clear, and quickly so, that whatever quality Clarke's heart possesses for her to feel and have felt in this way, its name and nature is beyond what we've learned. Our failure floods the swollen banks of these gossamer threads with white-tipped frustration and deep, dragging whirpools of annoyance. In this place, entwined so closely in this warm, comforting dark, we had the best chance at finding an answer.

Had, because this may very well be the last of these dreams. The threads are fraying, the dark lightening to gray at its far edges. This place, that we built for ourselves, was not made with any intent of lasting. There was no intent in its making at all. It came about by accident, an unforeseen consequence of we three joining our strength to drown the fire that threatened to destroy Edith's home. Could we build it anew, by doing what we had done before? It is possible, Clarke has conceded, but unlikely. It was more than just magic that brought us together, then. There was desperation, to save homes and lives, to save people, as many as could be. There was fear, so great it made the strongest stay and the weakest flee. Determination, as well, a line drawn in the earth: this far, we give you, it said to the flame, and no further.

There was also a bond, less tangible than these gossamer threads. It began, of all places, in a washroom, with four people arguing about the best step to take next. In a moment of volunteering it was born; a newly made thing, small and tentative, first lifting its face to the blessed sun. It grew through the climb, the smoke, the wind, and the blasted heat. It has grown stronger every day since. When the threads are gone, it will remain. It may not be as easy, honest, or close as this dark, entwining place, but it will remain. That, we decide, is good.

I hope that the seeds in Clarke's as-yet ungrown garden grow and flower into what she believes they will, and not what she fears. I hope that I can make sense of the elk's words, even now coming to call as the waking hour nears. Let nothing be assumed, it whispers, yet again.

Yet again, I don't know what to make of it. While we still shelter together, in this place we made for ourselves, I look to Clarke and Edith, to see what they think of my dream. Edith believes that we should look into how the fire started, and doubt what 'they' are saying. Clarke believes the elk to have been a spirit of the wood, whose word and warning should not go unheeded. Thus, we decide, that it won't. We'll look into it.

Then, in a loose, languid sprawl of molten limbs and sweat-dappled brow, I awake.