Lir’s Epilogue
Lir’s Epilogue
Lir
The thought of losing her is all encompassing even though it has been months since the threat loomed.
Sometimes I still wake up in the night as we float, in a panic remembering her screams which rained down into the ocean and permeated into my gills with the water.
I am more human now than I ever thought possible.
Fear and rage I had never known wrack within my body at the mere memory of that night.
Tonight, I quickly come back to reality and realize we are still tethered together in our bed nest. We are interlocked between all of the floating kelp bulbs, each a small moor to anchor ourselves through and between.
The moonlight stitches silver embroidered fractal patterns across the phthalo green expanse.
So vivid and rife with life, with new life.
Listening closely to her soft breathing I am able to calm myself, and know we are still safe together. It comforts me to move my hand down her silvery torso, softly to the small lump forming just below her navel, I can feel the distinct roundness of her womb, of our child growing within her.
In the gentle current, I bask in her temple of ancient bravery. To destroy that lit tower, to come with me, to love me unconditionally—I will spend my entire life repaying it all to her, even if it means becoming a God of chaos and destruction.
I shake my head. Not me, I am not a divine being compared to her. She is the new sea deity that has been born from that burnt isle. I am but an extension of her arm, her sword and I would wield it over and over for her.
She makes me feel that, without her—both living longer or dying sooner, would be the same curse of fate. That to die for her and to live for her are the greatest vocation I could be summoned towards.
“Oh, Andrea.” I exhale out all those nightmares as I sprinkle soft kisses all across her face, peppering my love into whatever new places I worry have yet to grow accustomed to my touch.
I vow to always protect you.
Pulling up onto my chest, she dreams beneath the barely waning moon which glows through quilt batting fluff that spreads and gaps to part ways for each individual ray that shines down to bless her in my arms. Every wavelength of silver ribbon illuminating just for her, a primordial lighthouse to always guide her back to me in the vast ocean.
Her small hand twitches in mine, typing out her dreams, the ones the sea weaves into her mind to think only of me.
A whale song drifts over these intricate silver waves that slowly undulate around us.
We have followed them to warmer southern waters and Andrea no longer shivers.
She no longer starves, for anything. The human world only gave her want, even though it was filled with abundance, a manufactured thirst which left her throat perpetually dried.
Now, her cup will always overflow and I will give into every desire she asks for.
Her eyes flicker open a little and she looks at me through her half lidded gaze and I melt into the water around us. She nuzzles me a bit, morse code being fluttered onto my skin with her lashes. “Lir.” Her round lips beg for me.
“Yes, my love...”
“A kiss?” She murmurs.
This is often all she demands of me, and I give into her every time. We drift back into our languid dream, wrapped together in the kelp forest.
I have been on a long journey, constantly encircling the earth, but in her arms I am home.