Crossing blades

[Maeve]

Maeve felt a lump rise in her throat when Sinbad pulled her to him, the emotion so raw on his face she felt something break inside her. Tears brimmed in her eyes but she shut them close and swallowed back the sobs that threatened to choke her as she rested her head on his shoulder and held on to him, abandoning herself in his arms like a child finding refuge in a protective embrace after a nightmare.

It was overwhelming, as if all the emotions she had bottled up since the storm were suddenly being unleashed, like a dam crashing open. The crushing sadness of being separated from him, the regrets for all the things left unsaid, the helplessness as she watched him self-destruct, the unbearable longing...she was feeling it all now, every heartache, every despair...feeling everything all at once and a thousand times stronger, fully realizing just how much she had missed him over the past year. His gentle voice, his comforting touch, his beautiful eyes, his smile...She had missed him so much it hurt, as if her heart was being torn out of her chest all over again, unable to cope with it all.

But he was here now. His heart was beating against hers through his shirt, vibrantly alive and real, his hair smelling like the sea and his arms warm and strong around her like an impenetrable shield. She never wanted to let go, never wanted to lose him again. It had been too hard, much too hard, and she didn’t have the strength anymore. She had given everything she had.

Emotionally shaken and exhausted, with longing and need crushing her inside, she struggled not to cry. Shifting her position, she pulled him up with her on the bench, fighting unshed tears as she wrapped her arms around his neck and shoulders to bring him closer, to hold him tighter, safer, never letting go. She choked on sobs, desperate to convince herself that she wasn't dreaming, that she wasn't still stranded a thousand miles away. That she was here, really here. With him.

Home.

[Mala]

Mala breathed - air she didn't need anymore; felt her heartbeat thrum deep within - a heart that did no longer exist. Lost in the whirlwind of fear and agony and rage the ghost succumbed to the assault of emotions and pictures that washed over her. A battle she had never desired to witness, sorrow she had never wanted to know.

Oh, she had watched over her son before, had seen him fight drawing strength from burning regret and hidden darkness; had helped him defy the devil himself. Yet none of what had taken place in the demonic lair compared to what had just happened in this lane; nothing had ever broken and at the same time healed her like this.

She felt his determination, his worry - his pain. They erupted from his soul and cut into her own, each moment that he'd protected Maeve without even once thinking of his own safety. And now that it was all over, now that they were safe he almost shattered.

Mala truly saw him then: her son. The boy she had been denied to be a mother to, the man he truly was.
If anyone would have been there to ask her about what she perceived and felt she would have probably compared it to watching the sun emerge after a long, dark night - a new dawn after thunder and rain had ruled a human's life for too long. And it was not only in Sinbad, but in her, too. The redhead who had finally found her way back to him.

Maea had thought that she'd already understood back in Scratch's dungeons, that she'd known what exactly the Celt meant to Sinbad.

Faced with the cleansing maelstrom of longing and loss that whirled within those two young souls she learned that she had known nothing yet.

[Sinbad]

There was no need for words at the time. The yelling and shouting from not too far away at the market was blended out, it was as if Sinbad could merely register it as something of a muffled sound, as if his senses had blended it out almost entirely. All that counted was here, right with him. He felt a hand reach up protectively, in an attempt to hold her even closer, a hand absentmindedly but protectively, soothingly brushing her hair. He didn´t know who he was soothing exactly. Maybe it was both of them.

He could tell, just from her body language, even without looking because his eyes were closed, that she was close to tears, just like him. He knew her that well and even though he could not yet tell what was to be or what would come of this, where she had suddenly come from and whether she would stay, he was certain of this: how well he knew her and how much she belonged to him. How much a piece of the puzzle that was his soul had been missing. Maybe that was because for now he didn´t let go. For now he just embraced her.

“I missed you…” He heard himself say the words, without even being aware of an intention to speak them. “You have no idea how much I missed you.”