Emilie

She came to an recumbent quiet under the sounds seeping away from her, away with the room. Her waking world was at an end where her senses sought no more. A mere blanket sheet of nirvana. Nothing at all all over her senses, and a sense of...then a sense of.....white...bright light washing over all she had to say and do...all was left but to lie down and be at peace. It didn't matter. How could it possibly matter, being so vulgar, and material, and...then a whisper...

"Times I see someone silhouetted where there's windows..." right in one of her ears...an ear...what was it ears were, she wondered, and then there was more there "Where the eyes go..." His voice said "I don't know..."

It was a hiss. It was a rumble that began before she felt the cold and wet push on the soles of her bare feet, splaying out of between her toes. She worried about the blankets and sheets until she simply did not remember where she had been moments ago at all.

She lay in wet, growing use to the cold coming up behind, and the cold breeze caught up in time to see the water retreat. It made her feel as though it were her moving, eyes closed against the light.

So much to say. She still had so much to say, she did not remember. Her faith moved. A comma there, and emphasis stained--would her faith move her. Would it have the words she hoped she might have said--the words she hoped she might say?

"I still don't know...I...I don't.." It is not sure she can be said to have said it at all. Here was a half an hour of words, but what was mostly no words at all. Silence she spoke. Silence and a few syllables here and there within the wiggling of her jaw, and her lips. They moved. They moved within these aforementioned syllables of her diminishing lisps.

"You are not alone" she felt His arms around her ribs the where she always use to love feeling them. No pain of joint. No priceless reunion yet either. There was dreamstate, and there was sensation, distinct, debatable..."We have much for you to learn" He said. "There is no rush...there is all the time in the world..." and then she felt a kiss. It was planted upon her cheek bone, just in front of her ear, not far, and there lips lingered long enough to suggest they did not want to leave.

"You've been such..." How was it He could make such simple words as such wait, and charge, and feel like words of good mixed up into regular sentences...? "...a good girl..." Only a pause, and a small emphasis.

"don't" she managed. She did not manage to make it sound sincere, she did not think. "don't" she said it again, somewhat similar, in fact entirely similar. "What do you want?"

If she can have whipped her hands and nails at the air before her face she might have. Her body felt so heavy though. Her hands crushing into the sand. She felt something upon each arm just bellow the wrist, one hand lifted like something light and lain upon her chest. The other lain atop, and something cool touched each eyelid, making the bright white dim.

"Promise is as promise does, popette." He talked like they were alone, although the feel of sheet and blanket lifting up over her face, fading soon after she felt it, was not by His hand, she knew. "The road was long and winding, with pain and joy, now here's the end, and the toll to pay..."

He gave a short quiet groan of the kind a grown man might when Her fingertips felt almost like they were open the way they had pruned.

"Your sister had not suffered before you asked she be revived." Images crossed her mind of the lifeless girl in the sand. She was so pale, and lips of blue. "Well...frightening for a little sister, but drowning itself is otherwise among the less unpleasant ways to die."

She felt so cold now. She felt remorse she had not in decades, coiling up irretrievably tight round her heart, and choking her from inside her throat. She could not sob. The sensation simply hung there, on a verge that only lingered--a fall where the ground did not come and did not come.

"Emilie..." wetted cheek, then two, felt warmer, and then the breeze made them cold. "A bright star in your discerning eye" He continued her thought outloud "even now tasting the richness you chose to share of your fortunes. Nothing of you in her but fond memory, and lessons learned."

Her eyes snapped open. The sky was overcast, and there He was standing over her, hand held out, a dim shape against the dimming sky. All was blue and darkening.

"Times I see someone silhouetted where there's windows." She blinked at His skin, paler than her sister's had been.

"Where the eyes go...I don't know..." She blinked at where His eyes should be, nothing there but blackness.

Accepting His hand, He hoisted her to her feet, and turned her towards the way down the beach. They both began to walk "My garden awaits you. You will adore it there, of this I can be certain..."

The beach was growing darker and colder as they walked. "Words in the day." She continued not quite under her breath. The scent on the wind threatened rain. "Whispers in the night..."

Feeling no frailty in her bones, or weakness in her body any more, she looked down to see her bosom pert within the one piece swimming suit she wore that day He had approached her sobbing over her sister. Stomach flat with her late teenage metabolism, legs and arms interesting of texture with the swimmer's build she once maintained for years at a time. The pride she had had... "Words in the day..." Even now the sobs would not come... "Breathing in the dark..."

"Tell Me about..." His pause seemed pregnant, as though He were making a show of finding the words, or as though He might say never mind instead of whatever it was He wished to inquire after "...your visit with Brit..."