[[OLD]] A Handful of Daffodils (Forgotten Series, #7)

Chapter Thirty-Three

Undetermined amount of time

Things came in bits and pieces. The feeling of a cool cloth against my forehead, different voices talking softly, a hand holding mine. Things that moved in and out of the painful darkness that surrounded me. I felt like I was in a deep abyss, one that washed pain over me in heated waves. It ebbed and flowed but never stopped. I felt lost inside of it and wondered what was wrong, what happened to me. My memory was spotty at best and there were moments when I wasn't aware of anything at all. As if I had moved far far away from my body. As if I was somewhere else, somewhere safe from the pain and the worry and the hurt.

There were moments I seemed to flow into a body that felt heavy, so heavy, and confining. It felt overly hot and uncomfortable and those were the moments when the pain was the worse. When it washed over me so brutally I wanted to scream with a mouth and throat that had no voice but they were blessedly far and few between. I knew there was something I needed to cling to but I couldn't grasp it. I knew it was there but I couldn't figure it out.

So I floated, in and out, near and far, waves of pain and heat crashing over me again and again, like the ebb and flow of the ocean that Mene controlled from her spot in the heavens. I wondered if she could see me, if she saw me lost in the dark, stuck in the ebb and flow of the pain and heat that swallowed me, pulling me down. I wondered if she cared or if I wasn't enough. It wouldn't be anything new. I had never been enough for anyone in my life. Why would the goddess find me enough for her attention?

I felt myself sliding downward, pulling down into that heavy and hot feeling, flowing into a body that was so unbearable to exist inside but this felt different. I seemed to settle underneath my skin, the pain a faint beat against my nerves, nothing like it had been where it was a discordant beat that pulled me in and shoved me away again and again.

Awareness filtered in and I became I aware I was breathing, a cool stream of air flowing up my nose, entering my lungs in smooth waves as I inhaled and exhaled slow and easy. I then became aware of my heartbeat. It was regular and soft, a far cry from what I remembered, the sluggish beat that struggled in a fight again an enemy I couldn't see or hear. Sounds slowly filtered into my ears as if cotton had been pulled from them, a soft and familiar voice murmured beside me before a cool cloth was brushed against my forehead.

I was awake even though my eyelids felt like they weighed a hundred pounds and I could open them. I was awake and an awareness of what I had been trying to cling to came back to me. "Maeve." It was a broken and cracked breath of air that made my throat and chest hurt. Tears burned my eyes as I realized we had been lost and I had fallen and couldn't get back up, my body giving up despite the shoving and urging that had happened. I had held her but she wasn't in my arms now, I didn't know where she was.

I felt panic rise up inside me before that soft voice came back. "It's okay, halfling. It's okay." There was an aching familiarity to the voice right before a weight was settled beside me and someone grasped my hand and placed it on a tiny back. "She's right here." Maeve burbled and babbled gently, patting at me and a painful sob ripped through my chest and I cried, trying with shaking and weak arms the refused to move to pull Maeve up to my chest.

She was safe. She was okay and she was safe.

Relief cracked me own the middle and I couldn't stop the painful and cracked sobs that escaped me. There was a soft shushing before someone shifted my arm, moving Maeve closer to me, wrapping my left arm around her as her little head rested on my chest as she gave a shuddering exhale. I tried to hold her close, tried to hold her tight. I sniffled, prying my eyes open, not willing to believe in the miracle I was given unless I could see her.

And there she was.

Her strawberry blond head resting on my chest, a yellow onesie on as she patted at my arm, babbling. "Maeve." I croaked it out and she wiggled around before she was able to look up at me. Her sweet face, her cute little nose. She was safe. It was enough to make my nose run and the tears make my vision blurry. She was safe.