Wonder Made

Twenty-Nine

•••

Captain Stormholden wanders the incomplete vastness of the Retelling. It's a graveyard to those who walk among its shapeless corridors, where unfinished stories, abandoned and tossed-aside drafts drift through a thousand lifetimes, never dying, never living. Never leaving.

The captain finds himself a spot among the loose ends and curls into a ball. He rests his head on a mound of nothing, and believes, rest is finally at hand. He desperately wants for rest. It is the least he deserves.

He approaches his relief with caution, as he knows the peace of a moment is easily shattered, but when he allows himself to drift, and his eyes close, it is Matilda whom he sees. He no longer cares if he was written to love her, because it is she he desired still, even after everything, their attachment so strong, his heart summoned her here. 

Stormholden breathes deep, and he is reminded of Matilda's scent. Wildflowers. She was always bathed in wildflowers, whether from her fondness of weaving them into crowns or picking them to gift the grieving widows down the lane, the scent distinctly hers. And then, another scent permeates the air, this one of salt. 

The captain is remiss to open his eyes, afraid to end his sweet dream before it's natural conclusion, but he does so regardless and with caution. The emptiness he was once faced with, has been transformed into the familiar. Matilda stands in the distance, bare feet digging into the sandy beaches outside the cottage where so many of Stormholden's dreams lay in tatters at the hands of a drunken, cruel father. 

Her hem is muddied, her skirts bunched in her tanned fists. She laughs when the tide caresses her ankles. The sensation tickles her. Stormholden recalls it always had.

The captain is intrigued, as Matilda is neither hallucination nor torment. She is real, her laughter, her smile. Her jubilance as she kicks at the water, sun beating upon her back. 

The next thing he knows, she is falling into him, her warmth the only thing to ever strike a fire in his soul. Her hair caresses his neck and he smells wildflowers again. She grips him hard and though he desires nothing more than to hold her, in fact, his heart and soul demand this of him, he finds he cannot. Dream or no, his hands, so tainted with blood, would only serve to crush her. 

Matilda is too precious to risk losing again. 

The tide comes rushing up the beach to splash against their feet. "Ire," Matilda whispers into his chest, her fingers stroking his jaw, "I was not written to be so frail an existence. If you had ever reached out and embraced me like you had all those days in the forest, you would have nurtured the love I already harbored for you. You would have given me the courage and strength of resolve to stand up to my father, and choose my heart."

Guilt swells inside Stormholden. "I should have--"

"You shouldn't have," she presses a finger to his lips, securing his silence. "I loved after you. I had a kind husband, and two adorable children. And when my end came, I looked death in the eyes and smiled. You want to know why?" 

He shakes his head. 

"Because I lived without regret."

She pulls away, eyes the color of fertile soil, staring into his face. "But you," she dips her head low, and plants a kiss on each of his knuckles. "The same can not be said for you. So I implore you, Ire. Wake. Here, in this place, it is not your ending, but a beginning, my love."

She burrows her head into the crook of his neck. "Forgive me for being selfish again, though it is only how I was written, but we have a few minutes to spare while they finish putting your pages in order, and I'd very much like to watch the sun set with you. I realize now, in our time together, we'd never witnessed it together. You wouldn't mind obliging me, one last time, would you?"