the moon with one eye vieweth the stars

He stumbles into it stiffly, grimly set lips now slightly parted when he sees her.

Her smile might fairly be described as shy, but it's also so confident. So warm, so wry.

She's not delicate, but she also is. A vibrant, pulsing core.

She looks, to be unpoetic, like the most real person he has ever seen, even as she resembles a doll brought to color and motion.

But poetry does suit her so unfathomably well.

"Welcome home, Minoth."

His own words fail him, every quip and turn of phrase. She looks at him, and he can hardly meet her gaze.

All this honor, for him. All this ceremony, all this greeting. All this time and space set aside, set before and after and all a spinning round.

And oh, Architect, to touch her...

She doesn't squeeze her arms about his back, but instead calmly lays them there, elbows low and relaxed. She turns her face to the side, cheek shaped and freckled beyond compare.

And suddenly the weight of what it has always meant to attempt to be beautiful, to project a self-centered image of propriety and effortful appearance onto the stage, disappears. Instantaneously, Minoth is lighter, grounded from outside of himself.

He becomes part of Flora in the gentlest way he can flatter himself to do. Her hair, dark and thick. Her dress, pink and soft. All of this shown - painted - as well in her lips and eyelashes; each perfect part of the puzzle that becomes her.

Everything that has ever been wrong with him. Every strife and struggle he's ever had. The planes of his face change to reflect the ease of Flora's interpretation, of her purpose-made life.

Has anything, ever, been wrong? Have there been worries, in this world? Have there been issues and alibis?

The crown of her head is tucked beneath his chin, but his head is canted to one side, because he's curious. Even with her in his embrace (and it matters not the innate quality of it, the relative goodness measurable by God), he cannot bear to let her out of his sight.

She changes his field of vision. She alters his brittle and embittered ways.

He is so different, and then again he is more himself than he has ever been.

And Flora herself?

It seems she has always been waiting to receive him. As if there was never a question, when she saw him. Simply a sigh. Simply an exhale, and an inhale once again.

Ah, it's you. I've been waiting for your rising time.

I've been waiting for you to come to me. I've been waiting to come back to you, too.