Ended.
Separated by magic that didn't ask permission and can't be undone.
It's odd.
The observation surfaces with the detached curiosity of someone examining their own wounds with clinical attention. When you've never noticed the difference to begin with—when the presence was so constant, so fundamental, so woven into the fabric of your existence that it felt like simplybeing—how do you suddenly long for its absence?
How do you mourn something you didn't realize you had?
How do you grieve a loss you can't properly define?
The hollowness in my chest seems to deepen with each question, void expanding into territories I didn't know existed until they were emptied of whatever used to fill them. The sensation leaves me feeling as if I no longer have a purpose—which makes no sense logically, intellectually, by any rational measure of analysis.
But the mind loves to play games on all of us, doesn't it?
Tricks us into believing truths that aren't true.
Convinces us of lacks that shouldn't matter.
Creates voids where none should exist.
I inhale her scent once more.
The action is deliberate this time—conscious choice to draw her essence into my lungs, to let her presence fill at least some small part of the emptiness that threatens to consume me. Rose and copper and something new, something I don't immediately recognize, something that carries weight my Fae senses identify as significant.
I let the breath out slowly.
And finally notice our surroundings.
Oh.
The cocoon that encases us glows with soft bioluminescence, light emanating from flowers and leaves and vines that have woven themselves into a protective shell around our tangled bodies. The structure is beautiful in ways that transcend simple aesthetics—each bloom positioned perfectly, each leaf angled to maximize the diffusion of gentle illumination, each vine carrying thorns that speak to defense while roses speak to comfort.
I made this.
The realization arrives with certainty that doesn't require conscious memory. This is my magic—the particular signature of Fae power that I've wielded since before I understood what wielding meant. The cocoon carries my essence in every petal, every thorn, every curl of vine that protects us from whatever exists beyond its boundaries.
But when?
How?
Why don't I remember creating something this elaborate?
And that's when I notice what's different about Gwenievere.
Fae magic.
She's oozing it now.
The power radiates from her sleeping form in waves that my senses drink like water after drought—golden energy that pulses with rhythms I recognize from courts and kingdoms that exist beyond mortal perception. It bleeds from her unconsciously, probably without her awareness, filling the cocoon's interior with warmth that speaks to heritage she's only beginning to acknowledge.
This must have drawn me to her.
The understanding clicks into place with the particular satisfaction of puzzles finally revealing their solutions.
A calling.
Her magic reaching for mine, or mine reaching for hers, the connection between us acting as beacon that guided my unconscious form through whatever distance separated us until she was wrapped in my arms.
