s t o n e c o a t

Syllables as leaves on the wind, remnants beneath the ashes and wrath of an unusually chilly fall; the welcoming of winter and the dead earth that it left in wake. Fitting, really, how they always met here, beneath sleeping trees and amid the wolves. And Fox, she spoke softly as she often did, wavering like a fawn after the crest of life. Captivating and gut-wrenching, the catalyst of his guilt, though it was of his own design.

Lips thinned in response, and Connor refused to meet her gaze just yet. The very same sentiment had plagued him for entirely too long. Despite every action speaking otherwise, the doubt was like a curse. Too focused in his own world of vengeance, isolation, and mistrust, he wouldn’t have known that she suffered just the same. A tilt of the head when he offered his own utterance, at least sincere in stoicism.

   “Have you?” he asked simply, “I do not think so.” 

     “You are the furthest from.”