Wild ​Reverence

by Rebecca Ross

He longs to worship you, but not in the way you think.”

I do not know when this happened, when the current rose and when I let it take me, willingly, but there came a moment when I looked at you and could not breathe. There was a moment when I watched you depart, and I wanted to fall to my knees.

My home is your home. My arms are a haven for you to rest. My last name is yours if you desire it. I will love you to my grave, and even beyond it, when the mists welcome me, when I am hopefully very old and gray and grouchy and have spent the seasons beside you when you are here and dreaming of you when you are gone. I love you, dearly, Red.

“Because she is yours, as you are hers,” Bade replied quietly. “And she is precious to me.”

“I cannot pretend with you any longer,” she said. “I love you. I have loved you for a long time.”

I realized I wanted her to see me bare. I was weak for her alone, and I wanted her to know it. I did not want to keep anything from her.

We were doomed, she and I. One day, I would perish, and she would live on, endless as the stars. But if we were doomed, then let us fully embrace it.

She had taken my fire with her to the mists. And I did not dare utter these words, although I dwelled on them every autumn when the date of her death approached. I still hoped that one day, she would return to me.

Matilda is all that you need to escape us both. Her fate is woven with yours. A knot that not even I can unravel.

A goddess who loved a mortal.

“I would wait a thousand years for you,” Vincent said. “If you asked me, I would wait for you until only my bones remained upon an altar. But if you must leave again, then let me follow you, Red.”

“I cannot bear to be away from you,” he whispered, kissing my brow. Again and again, until I realized he was tracing my crown of stars. Something only he could see. “Look at me, love. Let me see your eyes.”

He was mine, and I was his.

She had died many years ago but had returned to live alongside her mortal love. Their time together had been simple but fulfilling. When he had eventually passed, silver-headed and weathered by the generous years given to him, she had gone with him to the mists, much to the shock of the gods.

She was the only dead divine who could come and go as she pleased. Who could cross the threshold of the mists as she willed. What power she held; it radiated from her like the summer sun. I could hardly believe she had been forgotten amongst men. That her name could only be evoked by the oldest of divines, and we had all but melted away in this new world.

She was many things. She was words and souls, spring and iron. She was rivers. And none of them could ever be stolen from her.

Matilda, whom the myths would seek to cut away and forget, all because she loved a mortal man.

The divine is nothing without mortal hearts. And should we love them, we should not be punished for it. No, I think. It is all the more reason why we should be remembered.