The weather was being particularly disagreeable this afternoon, sun cowering behind thick, gray cloud cover. Cold hardly began to describe it.
Harinsya fluffed out her dark pelt bitterly, the only splash of color in the world of snowy white. Although the cold was seeping under her short coat of fur, its fluffy undercoat kept the worst of it from getting at her. For once, Rin was grateful for her thick underfur, but still the snow was uncomfortable at best. Stubbornly, she shook her head, bright orange eyes flashing in defiance of the coming snowstorm from the depths of her thin ebony mask. I will keep going. Each pawstep, each beat of her heart thundered out the rhythm. I will keep going. I must keep going. For Pillan, I will keep going. This had been her mantra ever since the day she set off in search of him. It'd been for yours, four terrible years and three months aside since she'd lost him, her only love. Rin had never sacrificed her time nor energy to stop. Only resting, eating, only stopping when absolutely necessary. If there was ever even a single day when she was delayed, Rin thought she might scream and never stop. Even the weather now, on the brink of a blizzard, couldn't deter her.
Thick poplars surrounded her, their wide trunks frosted with snow and their roots concealed under the cold white layer on the ground. Though their leafless branches offered no protection from the whirling snowstorm, the main limbs were dense enough to at least partially shelter Rin. With a reluctant sigh, Rin swept her tail around an unusually black-trunked poplar, clearing the area of snow. It wasn't the most desirable situation, but her thick, short pelt would be able to block out most of the snow, and there weren't exactly many other options. Rin curled into a furry ball and, resting the tip of her tail over her nose, she consigned herself to watch the storm, peering out with flame-orange eyes.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The blizzard Harinsya endured was the final one of the season. It blew itself out overnight, and Rin was on the move again in no time. Nearly a month had passed since then, the moon waning to a sliver; tonight it would be gone. Since the snowmelt, signs of new life had been sprouting up everywhere: tiny green shoots crawling over the permafrost-coated leaves underfoot, deep emerald buds opening on the trees, the first snowdrop flowers blooming. Spring was well on its way, and Rin expected the poplars to be in full leaf by the time the moon was full again.
If only Pillan would be beside her now, in full, and real as the leaves, instead of his pseudo-self in her dreams
Rin dispelled the thought with a harsh shake of her head. Though the thought pierced her heart, sharper and more painful than any arrow, she couldn't afford to think like that. Accepting that he might no longer be beside her was accepting death: a fate Rin couldn't face, had to make inevitable. She was a Kiamara of great fortitude, and in the face of death or beyond, she refused to give in.
If she looked hard enough, she would find Pillan.
All of Europe she had wandered: from the British Isles into Austria, from Germany to the Greek island of Crete, but her heart had led her paws back to Hungary. Now, in this great forest of tall poplars and willows and green splendor abundant, she had a sense, almost akin to a homing beacon. She could feel his essence here- if anywhere, this felt like the place where Pillan would be. Yet her love remained unfound...
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Green. Green. The green was everywhere. Greener than the scleras of my eyes, greener even than the fur upon his back. This forest, I knew, would be where he hid: it was the only place where he could have hidden. I had scoured these lands far too thoroughly for him to be anywhere else. This forest spanned thousands of miles, but I'd search it all. I would take the forest by its roots so that nothing remained but the animals and he. I would not give up.
Do you know how far I had searched? I would not give up now. I would not give up ever.
I pushed through a thicket of ferns, narrowing my eyes angrily. Winter was over, its white embrace lost to the past, and now the too-cheerful tones and hues of spring pervaded the great forest. But with its arrival I'd received naught but empty trees. My voice had long gone hoarse from calling, calling in every direction, following the vague pull of my heart. Rounding another massive tree, this one a fir with a trunk thicker around than perhaps three times my entire body, I stopped at a peculiar sight. A large butterfly, wings resplendent in shades of iridescent green and sharply lied in delicate black, perched on the tip of a broad leaf. I held my breath in shock, and in wonder that I could hardly feel for the complete numbness of my mind. Its design was unmistakeably akin to Pillangó's. Could it possibly be...
He's near. He must be near.
I cautiously approached the butterfly, wishing to touch it, to reassure myself of its existence. Surely it was not a trick of the mind, not a cruel joke some god above was playing on me. This meant that he had to be close. The butterfly, however, was having none of it. In a mere three steps it lifted its shimmery wings in flight...only to alight on the tip of my frozen tail.
Of course It must think the bright colors are a flower. I allowed myself a smile, at last, watching the butterfly flitting about the bright lavender hairs. Then, for a moment, it wasn't the butterfly's touch, but Pillan's, and a scene from the past flashed before me, shuttling me back to the past, gazing into his intense teal eyes...and then it was gone. Tears welled up as I shut my eyes tightly, ears flattening against my skull as I tried to block out the memory- to no avail. The loss of him washed over me afresh, bringing with it a whole new tide of pain. My tail lashed uncontrollably as a choked-back sob escaped my throat, and the butterfly shot away in alarm. Grief and pain and horrible awful loss pierced me as though it were a new wound, like he'd just left. For a single moment, everything froze, the scene suspended in a pristine raindrop, and I marveled at its fragility, for I was at its center. And then- for the first time in four years, kneeling in the shadow of the hulking fir and trying desperately to keep back the tears that threatened to pour out- I questioned myself.
Had I really made the right decision in leaving everything I'd known to find him? Was all of the pain worth my sacrifice? Could I, would I possibly ever find him? He could be anywhere in this massive forest. It could take months, months that I could not afford to wait; and what then? Would I search the lands all over again? Would I eventually be forced to return to the fortress?
I would never go back, for that was to admit defeat, and to admit defeat was to embrace death- unless he'd gone back there. But no- he wouldn't. He'd never return. And neither would I.
Yet I'd never doubted my decision before. I had spent four years hoping fervently that he would just appear, perhaps, but floating on my river of dreams would only last so long before reality drowned me. Four years of searching, and nothing- not a single clue- had turned up. Yet, whispered a tiny voice in my mind, not yet. I was so close, but I'd come so far with naught but failure.
"Baszd," I murmured in fury, eyes brimming with tears. Rage began to blind me, obscuring the vision of my bright orange eyes behind a hazy veil of red. "Kbaszott szar! Kurva eletbe! Szar az elet! Te szuka! Baszd te, Pillangó!" I'd never been so livid in my life. It was as if the sadness, the anger, the desolation and loss of four years- and indeed all of the time before that, right back to the day my sister Kicsi was born- had spilled over at last, into this one muddled pile of anger that I could not even begin to make sense of. Spitting out every horrible word I knew, I collapsed, tears spilling from my eyes and darkening the ebony veil of fur surrounding my face. Now I'd resorted to even cursing out the one I loved. Why, why did he play this cruel and awful game with me? Why?!
I lay, miserably contemplating what in the name of God my life had become. A fruitless goose chase? An endless journey? The sun was sinking by the time my senses returned to me, and its golden caress of the far horizon seemed to bestow peace upon my mind. At last, my tears ceased. Though it seemed I waited for death, a small part of me lit with hope, a flickering of flame rekindling my faith and banishing the shadows that had cast themselves over my journey. My mind realized that which my heart had already known- we were playing cat and mouse, spinning in circles, and winding ever closer until nothing was left but us and death. My mind shifted to brooding as the day shifted to night, and finding not hunger nor thirst nor cold in my body, I gave myself over to sleep.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Another day. Four years, four and a half months. I awoke to the song of a Eurasian blackbird, a handsome male piping out a rich melody some distance away. He rested, quite confidently, in the fork of a pale fir tree, dark feathers stark again the silvery backdrop. The turmoil of my mind from the night before had ceased, blowing itself out like an after-storm breeze. Now I was left with only emptiness. His departure, and the subsequent game of hide-and-seek we played, were the most painful years I'd ever endured. His betrayal was so much worse than my family's.
Kicsi had cared, but it hadn't been enough. It had never, would never be enough. His family, my darling Butterfly's family, had been the final straw, I think, for both of us. He left. I soon followed.
But it had been over four years since this cruel game had started. Shouldn't I have found him by now?
The thought of giving up suddenly seemed tantalizing, but I refused to give in like that. Slowly a new argument wound its way into my mind: what else could I do? I knew I would never return to the fortress of my origin, nor could I cease my search in the hopes that he would find me instead. No- I had become an eternal traveler, and I'd be able to do nothing else until I found him again. All I could do was hope that he was here....for if not, I could not fathom what would happen to me.
Begrudgingly, I lifted myself to my weary feet, taking a moment to brush the dirt and leaf mulch off of my silvery-pale paws. Whatever happened, I could not again lose faith as I had the previous day. It could prove fatal at this point. And so, adapting this mindset and clinging to my hope as though it was all I had left- and perhaps it was- I set off into the forest.
Several long hours passed as I made my way out in a straight line away from the place where I'd slept. By now the forest was more green than brown, with spring showing in every possible niche of earth and air. It was oddly calming, and so despite the fiery passion I'd harbored all night still burned, I allowed myself to relax slightly. Looking on ahead perhaps a hundred meters, I spotted a patch of particularly dense foliage, and sighed to myself. Traversing that wouldn't be very fun, but I couldn't afford to stray from the direct path I was on- if I became disoriented, there was no way I could scan the entire forest.
In no time, I had approached the thick wall of greenery, and with a sigh, I waved away a few staghorn ferns and fescue bushes. At least the plant matter thinned out from here. I stepped forward and reluctantly began my forage, noting some particularly large sword ferns about twenty meters in.
And then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a flash of green- greener than the ferns or trees around me, greener than emeralds, greener than the scleras of my eyes- disappear around a beech tree....
I froze. My heart stopped, and then the world around me. My breath seemed to stop working, and I failed to produce any words from within my throat. Because I knew that green. I knew that green better than I knew myself.
I knew.
I had found him.
"P..." I whispered hoarsely, but it died in my throat. Tears were quickly forming in my eyes, and my raspy throat began to close up, but- no. No, I was sure, it had to be...
"...Pillan...?" I whispered again, at a loss for any words other than his name. I could not formulate any thoughts- my mind couldn't process a single thing- but for him.
The flicker of green I had noticed had vanished behind the pale, creamy beech tree, but he could not have gone far...though he probably hadn't heard my whisper. Desperately, I licked my lips and tried again. "P-Pillan...?"
I heard a slight rustle somewhere ahead and off to the left; I pressed my body against the beech tree, trying to stop the fierce pounding of my heart- which seemed to be making up for the moment earlier when it had nearly stopped. And then, agonizingly slowly...the sound of footsteps, cautiously treading upon the leaf mold underneath.
There was a long breath of silence- I shut my eyes, the pain of not turning around and sprinting full force almost unbearable. But at last, to my left, I heard a sharp intake of breath, and I could not possibly wait any longer. My eyes shot open, and I turned, and there he was- there he was.
My love, my Butterfly, my Pillangó....Here he was.
He was as I remembered him; coat in slightly iridescent shades of green, with his pine-blue mane and tail, the little curl atop his head untamable as ever and his bangs still the way I adored...The pale, minty green on his stomach and his emerald horns, and of course, the butterflies on every part of him. Though he was perhaps a bit thinner and leaner than I remembered, he had a good inch of height on me, and I looked up....and for the first time in four years and four months, I met his eyes again.
The shock washed over me again with twice as much force as before. I could not draw a breath as I met that intense teal gaze, eyes shining bright with hope and brighter with tears.
"Pillan..." I whispered, and I smiled. And my tears brimmed over, and so did his, and then both of us were nearly sobbing, choking on the joy of having found one another.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"At last...at last," Rin whispered. "It's been so long..."
Pillangó did not even speak; he just gazed at her, caught up in the beauty of the lover he thought he'd left behind forever. She looked up at him, and her imploring eyes- fierce orange on gentle green- caused a few rough words to escape from his throat.
"You're as beautiful as the day I lost you." The words came out brokenly, from a throat long hoarse from disuse, but Rin couldn't have cared less. She had stopped crying, but tears still shone in her eyes as she gazed up towards him, leaning against him, snuggled firmly against his chest as if to make sure he wouldn't disappear.
"A-and you..." she replied faintly, and then simultaneously the two leaned together, sharing a passionate kiss to convey all of the thoughts and feelings and emotions that their words could not. After a long, serene moment, Rin broke away and rested her head on his chest, sighing softly.
I've found him, she thought, and her eyes filled with tears all over again.
I've found her, he thought, and his heart soared with hope.
Harinsya fluffed out her dark pelt bitterly, the only splash of color in the world of snowy white. Although the cold was seeping under her short coat of fur, its fluffy undercoat kept the worst of it from getting at her. For once, Rin was grateful for her thick underfur, but still the snow was uncomfortable at best. Stubbornly, she shook her head, bright orange eyes flashing in defiance of the coming snowstorm from the depths of her thin ebony mask. I will keep going. Each pawstep, each beat of her heart thundered out the rhythm. I will keep going. I must keep going. For Pillan, I will keep going. This had been her mantra ever since the day she set off in search of him. It'd been for yours, four terrible years and three months aside since she'd lost him, her only love. Rin had never sacrificed her time nor energy to stop. Only resting, eating, only stopping when absolutely necessary. If there was ever even a single day when she was delayed, Rin thought she might scream and never stop. Even the weather now, on the brink of a blizzard, couldn't deter her.
Thick poplars surrounded her, their wide trunks frosted with snow and their roots concealed under the cold white layer on the ground. Though their leafless branches offered no protection from the whirling snowstorm, the main limbs were dense enough to at least partially shelter Rin. With a reluctant sigh, Rin swept her tail around an unusually black-trunked poplar, clearing the area of snow. It wasn't the most desirable situation, but her thick, short pelt would be able to block out most of the snow, and there weren't exactly many other options. Rin curled into a furry ball and, resting the tip of her tail over her nose, she consigned herself to watch the storm, peering out with flame-orange eyes.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The blizzard Harinsya endured was the final one of the season. It blew itself out overnight, and Rin was on the move again in no time. Nearly a month had passed since then, the moon waning to a sliver; tonight it would be gone. Since the snowmelt, signs of new life had been sprouting up everywhere: tiny green shoots crawling over the permafrost-coated leaves underfoot, deep emerald buds opening on the trees, the first snowdrop flowers blooming. Spring was well on its way, and Rin expected the poplars to be in full leaf by the time the moon was full again.
If only Pillan would be beside her now, in full, and real as the leaves, instead of his pseudo-self in her dreams
Rin dispelled the thought with a harsh shake of her head. Though the thought pierced her heart, sharper and more painful than any arrow, she couldn't afford to think like that. Accepting that he might no longer be beside her was accepting death: a fate Rin couldn't face, had to make inevitable. She was a Kiamara of great fortitude, and in the face of death or beyond, she refused to give in.
If she looked hard enough, she would find Pillan.
All of Europe she had wandered: from the British Isles into Austria, from Germany to the Greek island of Crete, but her heart had led her paws back to Hungary. Now, in this great forest of tall poplars and willows and green splendor abundant, she had a sense, almost akin to a homing beacon. She could feel his essence here- if anywhere, this felt like the place where Pillan would be. Yet her love remained unfound...
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Green. Green. The green was everywhere. Greener than the scleras of my eyes, greener even than the fur upon his back. This forest, I knew, would be where he hid: it was the only place where he could have hidden. I had scoured these lands far too thoroughly for him to be anywhere else. This forest spanned thousands of miles, but I'd search it all. I would take the forest by its roots so that nothing remained but the animals and he. I would not give up.
Do you know how far I had searched? I would not give up now. I would not give up ever.
I pushed through a thicket of ferns, narrowing my eyes angrily. Winter was over, its white embrace lost to the past, and now the too-cheerful tones and hues of spring pervaded the great forest. But with its arrival I'd received naught but empty trees. My voice had long gone hoarse from calling, calling in every direction, following the vague pull of my heart. Rounding another massive tree, this one a fir with a trunk thicker around than perhaps three times my entire body, I stopped at a peculiar sight. A large butterfly, wings resplendent in shades of iridescent green and sharply lied in delicate black, perched on the tip of a broad leaf. I held my breath in shock, and in wonder that I could hardly feel for the complete numbness of my mind. Its design was unmistakeably akin to Pillangó's. Could it possibly be...
He's near. He must be near.
I cautiously approached the butterfly, wishing to touch it, to reassure myself of its existence. Surely it was not a trick of the mind, not a cruel joke some god above was playing on me. This meant that he had to be close. The butterfly, however, was having none of it. In a mere three steps it lifted its shimmery wings in flight...only to alight on the tip of my frozen tail.
Of course It must think the bright colors are a flower. I allowed myself a smile, at last, watching the butterfly flitting about the bright lavender hairs. Then, for a moment, it wasn't the butterfly's touch, but Pillan's, and a scene from the past flashed before me, shuttling me back to the past, gazing into his intense teal eyes...and then it was gone. Tears welled up as I shut my eyes tightly, ears flattening against my skull as I tried to block out the memory- to no avail. The loss of him washed over me afresh, bringing with it a whole new tide of pain. My tail lashed uncontrollably as a choked-back sob escaped my throat, and the butterfly shot away in alarm. Grief and pain and horrible awful loss pierced me as though it were a new wound, like he'd just left. For a single moment, everything froze, the scene suspended in a pristine raindrop, and I marveled at its fragility, for I was at its center. And then- for the first time in four years, kneeling in the shadow of the hulking fir and trying desperately to keep back the tears that threatened to pour out- I questioned myself.
Had I really made the right decision in leaving everything I'd known to find him? Was all of the pain worth my sacrifice? Could I, would I possibly ever find him? He could be anywhere in this massive forest. It could take months, months that I could not afford to wait; and what then? Would I search the lands all over again? Would I eventually be forced to return to the fortress?
I would never go back, for that was to admit defeat, and to admit defeat was to embrace death- unless he'd gone back there. But no- he wouldn't. He'd never return. And neither would I.
Yet I'd never doubted my decision before. I had spent four years hoping fervently that he would just appear, perhaps, but floating on my river of dreams would only last so long before reality drowned me. Four years of searching, and nothing- not a single clue- had turned up. Yet, whispered a tiny voice in my mind, not yet. I was so close, but I'd come so far with naught but failure.
"Baszd," I murmured in fury, eyes brimming with tears. Rage began to blind me, obscuring the vision of my bright orange eyes behind a hazy veil of red. "Kbaszott szar! Kurva eletbe! Szar az elet! Te szuka! Baszd te, Pillangó!" I'd never been so livid in my life. It was as if the sadness, the anger, the desolation and loss of four years- and indeed all of the time before that, right back to the day my sister Kicsi was born- had spilled over at last, into this one muddled pile of anger that I could not even begin to make sense of. Spitting out every horrible word I knew, I collapsed, tears spilling from my eyes and darkening the ebony veil of fur surrounding my face. Now I'd resorted to even cursing out the one I loved. Why, why did he play this cruel and awful game with me? Why?!
I lay, miserably contemplating what in the name of God my life had become. A fruitless goose chase? An endless journey? The sun was sinking by the time my senses returned to me, and its golden caress of the far horizon seemed to bestow peace upon my mind. At last, my tears ceased. Though it seemed I waited for death, a small part of me lit with hope, a flickering of flame rekindling my faith and banishing the shadows that had cast themselves over my journey. My mind realized that which my heart had already known- we were playing cat and mouse, spinning in circles, and winding ever closer until nothing was left but us and death. My mind shifted to brooding as the day shifted to night, and finding not hunger nor thirst nor cold in my body, I gave myself over to sleep.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Another day. Four years, four and a half months. I awoke to the song of a Eurasian blackbird, a handsome male piping out a rich melody some distance away. He rested, quite confidently, in the fork of a pale fir tree, dark feathers stark again the silvery backdrop. The turmoil of my mind from the night before had ceased, blowing itself out like an after-storm breeze. Now I was left with only emptiness. His departure, and the subsequent game of hide-and-seek we played, were the most painful years I'd ever endured. His betrayal was so much worse than my family's.
Kicsi had cared, but it hadn't been enough. It had never, would never be enough. His family, my darling Butterfly's family, had been the final straw, I think, for both of us. He left. I soon followed.
But it had been over four years since this cruel game had started. Shouldn't I have found him by now?
The thought of giving up suddenly seemed tantalizing, but I refused to give in like that. Slowly a new argument wound its way into my mind: what else could I do? I knew I would never return to the fortress of my origin, nor could I cease my search in the hopes that he would find me instead. No- I had become an eternal traveler, and I'd be able to do nothing else until I found him again. All I could do was hope that he was here....for if not, I could not fathom what would happen to me.
Begrudgingly, I lifted myself to my weary feet, taking a moment to brush the dirt and leaf mulch off of my silvery-pale paws. Whatever happened, I could not again lose faith as I had the previous day. It could prove fatal at this point. And so, adapting this mindset and clinging to my hope as though it was all I had left- and perhaps it was- I set off into the forest.
Several long hours passed as I made my way out in a straight line away from the place where I'd slept. By now the forest was more green than brown, with spring showing in every possible niche of earth and air. It was oddly calming, and so despite the fiery passion I'd harbored all night still burned, I allowed myself to relax slightly. Looking on ahead perhaps a hundred meters, I spotted a patch of particularly dense foliage, and sighed to myself. Traversing that wouldn't be very fun, but I couldn't afford to stray from the direct path I was on- if I became disoriented, there was no way I could scan the entire forest.
In no time, I had approached the thick wall of greenery, and with a sigh, I waved away a few staghorn ferns and fescue bushes. At least the plant matter thinned out from here. I stepped forward and reluctantly began my forage, noting some particularly large sword ferns about twenty meters in.
And then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a flash of green- greener than the ferns or trees around me, greener than emeralds, greener than the scleras of my eyes- disappear around a beech tree....
I froze. My heart stopped, and then the world around me. My breath seemed to stop working, and I failed to produce any words from within my throat. Because I knew that green. I knew that green better than I knew myself.
I knew.
I had found him.
"P..." I whispered hoarsely, but it died in my throat. Tears were quickly forming in my eyes, and my raspy throat began to close up, but- no. No, I was sure, it had to be...
"...Pillan...?" I whispered again, at a loss for any words other than his name. I could not formulate any thoughts- my mind couldn't process a single thing- but for him.
The flicker of green I had noticed had vanished behind the pale, creamy beech tree, but he could not have gone far...though he probably hadn't heard my whisper. Desperately, I licked my lips and tried again. "P-Pillan...?"
I heard a slight rustle somewhere ahead and off to the left; I pressed my body against the beech tree, trying to stop the fierce pounding of my heart- which seemed to be making up for the moment earlier when it had nearly stopped. And then, agonizingly slowly...the sound of footsteps, cautiously treading upon the leaf mold underneath.
There was a long breath of silence- I shut my eyes, the pain of not turning around and sprinting full force almost unbearable. But at last, to my left, I heard a sharp intake of breath, and I could not possibly wait any longer. My eyes shot open, and I turned, and there he was- there he was.
My love, my Butterfly, my Pillangó....Here he was.
He was as I remembered him; coat in slightly iridescent shades of green, with his pine-blue mane and tail, the little curl atop his head untamable as ever and his bangs still the way I adored...The pale, minty green on his stomach and his emerald horns, and of course, the butterflies on every part of him. Though he was perhaps a bit thinner and leaner than I remembered, he had a good inch of height on me, and I looked up....and for the first time in four years and four months, I met his eyes again.
The shock washed over me again with twice as much force as before. I could not draw a breath as I met that intense teal gaze, eyes shining bright with hope and brighter with tears.
"Pillan..." I whispered, and I smiled. And my tears brimmed over, and so did his, and then both of us were nearly sobbing, choking on the joy of having found one another.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"At last...at last," Rin whispered. "It's been so long..."
Pillangó did not even speak; he just gazed at her, caught up in the beauty of the lover he thought he'd left behind forever. She looked up at him, and her imploring eyes- fierce orange on gentle green- caused a few rough words to escape from his throat.
"You're as beautiful as the day I lost you." The words came out brokenly, from a throat long hoarse from disuse, but Rin couldn't have cared less. She had stopped crying, but tears still shone in her eyes as she gazed up towards him, leaning against him, snuggled firmly against his chest as if to make sure he wouldn't disappear.
"A-and you..." she replied faintly, and then simultaneously the two leaned together, sharing a passionate kiss to convey all of the thoughts and feelings and emotions that their words could not. After a long, serene moment, Rin broke away and rested her head on his chest, sighing softly.
I've found him, she thought, and her eyes filled with tears all over again.
I've found her, he thought, and his heart soared with hope.
