Hazy Shade of Winter

Each second that passed made him more aware of how detached from reality this was. Of course Caelum was here, real and in the flesh, but something about this was so.. far away. He wanted to cling to the realness of it all, as though reaching for the light at the end of the tunnel, or the last bit of warmth before a devastating blizzard. He held her for a long while, enjoying her familiar scent, wishing he could take away her tears and undo all the hurt she'd ever felt. The larger male held her until he stopped, until the still silence was shattered by the word that needed to be spoken. He blinked, his face contorting just slightly in a mirrored image of her own pained one

He felt whatever relief that had come to him fade away, his stomach sinking suddenly. Zephyr felt a rare wave of nervousness hit him.  He wished she had stayed silent, he really did. Perhaps it had been foolish to think they could've gone on like that much longer, without facing what they both wanted to say. "I.." he started, wary and uncertain. "I care about you, too. I'd be fooling myself if I pretended otherwise." Even though he'd gotten past the point of missing her, and of longing for her.. clearly he still cared, even if part of.him hated her too. This meeting proved that much.

She continued to pry, just as she always had. He'd never been able to hide much from her. He retracted from her slightly as she spoke. What had changed? He'd never been on his own until that day, and the burden of what he'd seen - and what he'd lost - had been enough to break any man. He was no exception. He averted his gaze, fighting the urge to shrug and brush her off entirely. "I.. had a lot of time to think," he said after a moment, gritting his teeth "To think about where I'd gone wrong and where you'd gone wrong." His voice was no longer quivering. That caustic fustration he'd felt when she had mentioned Inverno seemed to be welling up again inside his chest. "I met someone. He helped put the pieces back together and helped me get through it all. Helped me come to terms with how I felt." Was that what she wanted to hear? He still couldn't quite admit he'd been wrong, though he would say last time hadn't gone as planned.