There's always such a battle between winter and spring. Winter doesn't want to give up, but spring won't be held at bay forever. So, they go back and forth. Green shoots insist on pushing up in the tiniest bit of sunlight, then a storm comes in and dumps snow on them. But they don't die. Then a frost, maybe, is the next attack. That can kill tender, growing things. Ice is the true killer. I've seen the whole forest stripped of its buds by a late ice storm, with shattered branches all over the ground. I've only seen that once or twice in my life, thank the gods. But even still...spring comes.
I can smell it now. I love that we Men can smell the earth beneath our feet. It must be just a tiny shadow of what the creatures of the wild can sense. The smell of the soil and the life within it, under the slowly strengthening sun. It's one of the best things about being alive. I remember when I was little - oh, maybe seven summers old - and I was out playing in the wood. Up in a tree, just sitting in the branches, feeling young and invincible and happy to be alive, like children do. Spring was coming on, and I suddenly noticed that I felt it. I felt something, in the air, around me. Was it the sunlight? Feeling closer and warmer? Was it some scent on the wind, of green things and soil? I don't know.
It's annoying at times, how the weather can't seem to make up its mind. One day is mellow and sweet and I can walk about in just my tunic. And the next there's a bitter wind again, and I'm huddled by the fire.
But that's life. That's the world we live and move and breathe in. And we can't do anything but endure it. And I can't make the seasons change more smoothly any more than I can stop thinking about and feeling him with me all the time now.
Like winter and spring warring it out. The old days of my life, all solitary and cold. I lived, but I wasn't alive. I wouldn't let myself be. After all the loss, all the betrayal, all the hurt. I had to go to sleep for a while. Just like the trees and the grass and the animals in winter. Sleeping until it's safe to wake up again. Until they have a reason to wake up.
Sometimes, I wonder if going back into town was the stupidest thing I could have done. Everything seems so harmless at first. Harmless greetings, harmless smiles, harmless drinks, harmless jests. And then, all at once, it isn't harmless anymore. But you say that it is. You say it's just for fun, it doesn't mean anything. Even though you know you're lying through your teeth. Maybe you hope the other person isn't lying. Maybe you hope their strength and lack of caring will make up for your weakness and the fact that you like being with them entirely too much.
Or maybe you both know you're a couple of damn liars, but you just play the game anyway.
It's like one of you is winter and one of you is spring. Or so you convince yourself. You're cold, they're warm. Sometimes you switch roles. You feel something growing inside you, and you pray that they're empty and lifeless. Then you notice a bud opening in their eyes when they look at you, and you feel warm sun rays in their fingers when they touch you, and you desperately repeat to yourself that you don't care. And maybe you manage to believe it for a little while.
I hate it when I just want to be alone with myself, but my mind won't shut up. I just want to sit here at my camp and listen to the wrens and the sparrows and watch the bright blue sky and not think about anything.
But he's always in my thoughts now.
And...I really don't hate it at all.
