My Last Hope
© Copyright 2008 Aranel Faelwen 
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This was the day. Today. Right now, this very moment.
It would be my last with him. My last moment, my last embrace, my last memory.
My hair whipped against my face, stinging my cheeks and turning them pink. One hand gripped the collar of my jacket and the other lay limp at my side. I stared at him unblinkingly, my eyes reluctant to leave his form, drinking in his familiar features as if some greedy grasping hand would snatch him away from me. But the truth was there. I could look at him forever and always, but who said he’d stand there forever and always?
No. He was going away. He was going to make a life of his own. He was reaching for his dreams. For hope. For life. For a new beginning. He was leaving everything behind. Everything. His home. His family. His belongings. His ties.
He was leaving me.
The sky was a dull depressing grey, the sea a dark mass of dead water. Strange. It was as if they were mirrors reflecting everything that I was feeling. It was a jumble of emotions. I wanted to cling to him and cry long wet tears, begging him to remain here. To stay … with me. Another part wanted to scream at him, to yell, that he should just leave for things would be the same without him.
But the words died in my throat. The silence between us was uncanny. I shivered, not sure whether it was from the cold or from anguish or from anger.
He looked back at me with those brown eyes. Eyes that could see through my very being and pierce my soul. As if reading my every thought and feeling. Eyes that could at once both reprimand and comfort. They held pools of mystery, of hidden laughter, of sorrow.
“Arianna.”
The sound of my name shattered the awkward silence between us.
I watched as he came closer to me. Reaching out a hand, he took mine and held it. His skin was warm. It was nice change to the cold air.
And by this simple act, my shield of ice was broken.
I threw myself into his embrace, into his warmth and protection. Tears threatened to blind me and I clenched me eyes shut, unwilling to let them flow. There had been enough tears already. Burying my face within the folds of his long coat, I clung to him like a child to its parent. Time seemed to forget us in its endlessness. Everything passed us by like memories embedded on a tape playing the events of our life. Our life. Our time. Together.
Sacred and cherished.
The sound of the ship’s horn tore through us like a sharp knife. I felt him slip away from my arms and they fell limp at my sides again.
I did not run after him. I did not call him back.
Instead … I let him go.
His tall form moved through the gathered crowd and disappeared in its midst. I could not be sure what it was that I was feeling.
I stood there, silent and still, always watching. And as if he had read my last wish, he appeared upon the deck. Our eyes met for one final moment.
The ship was moving. It was leaving this land for another. A new journey.
And never did our contact break.
Until that unshed tear slipped down my cheeks and into the waiting water below. Like that tear, he would be impossible to get back. For my time was near. His purpose was useless and I knew it in my heart.
Though he claimed to be going for me … for my life, so that we would not be torn apart by that horrid darkness. Or was it light?
He called it his purpose. It was his hope.
By the time he got back, everything would be silent. Gone.
And only he would remain.
I suddenly knew what that feeling that burned in my body was. It was love. For him. For he was:
“Eliah.”
My brother. My guardian. My Angel.
My Last Hope.
