The Queen's Conquer

Chapter 3 : Reunion

Reverie • [reh-vr-ee]
Absent-minded dreaming while awake; an abstract state of absorption.

🖤

~+~

In moments like these, it's difficult to comprehend how to correctly react—how to fathom how this scene even came to play out. Maybe the unsettling realization that another person is in the same room as me for the first time in two months is what sends me into such shock, forcing my mouth to gape open.

This can't be real. He can't be real. But it all is. Like a raw and strange existence has suddenly woken me up from a deep slumber.

The knife I'm still gripping now drops from my hand, clanking against the old wooden floors. Max stands from the couch, something within those warm eyes gleaming with so much sadness yet relief once they settle on me. My hand unconsciously goes to cover my mouth, the tears beginning their descent against my cheeks as I uncontrollably sob. His expression shifts, worry and pain crossing his features as he rushes over to embrace me into a tight hug.

And he's real. Truly and utterly authentic as I lean into his body, intaking his natural scent, absorbing all of the things I've missed so dearly since I last saw him slammed against those stone walls at the Snow Ball. I don't process his large arms wrapping around my fragile frame until my own slither around his neck, crying into his sweater and winter coat.

He comfortingly hushes me. "It's ok, Ana," he says softly as he continues to hold me. I nearly collapse against the floor from the amount of emotional distraught consuming my level-headedness. The insanity, the loneliness, the nightmares—everything slips down the drain. I haven't touched another person in months, haven't been able to remember what it's like anymore since that day when everything changed.

It takes me several minutes until I'm able to compose myself enough to speak, pulling my now damp cheeks away from his chest to look up into those big, beautiful brown eyes. My palm lays against the side of his face, relishing his skin connected with mine.

"H-how are you? Y-you were..." I choke out, struggling to form a full sentence.

"Why don't we sit down?" he suggests, his voice sends me out of a decade-long coma once it fills the room. I nod in agreement and he walks me to the couch, making sure my legs won't suddenly give out due to the shock.

Once I've become situated under the heaps of blankets, still shaken up, Max goes to light the fireplace against the near wall by using wood collected from outside along with some of the ruined furniture. I have yet to touch the old brick since my first night here, not exactly sure if it was usable anymore—if it would burn the whole cabin down or not. But he manages to get a steady blaze going in less than a minute, and now I'm left to wonder if I would've been better off sleeping at night with it lit.

I watch him intently the entire time, trying to pull together the pieces of how he managed to find me—how he survived while doing it...

"Max..." I begin, my voice trailing off as he rummages through a pack he brought and pulls out some canned soups. My stomach rumbles angrily just at the sight of them.

"Hungry?" he asks, glancing over and cutting off my thoughts. I only nod, watching as he opens the cans and begins to warm them over the fire. But I stare at him for a moment, not able to fathom how surreal this all is. We're miles away from any civilization...

"How did you even find me?" I blurt out. He glances over his shoulder, squatting before the fire with the cans before shrugging and turning back to the blaze.