Paradise Falls before the opportunity is gone forever

The kindness of the rain was that it had ushered them into a space together where they shared words and stories. Where Isla learned of what kind of life Nadine had lived. She learned names she had not heard before.

Like Cyran.

Who is that to you?

She could set aside the talk of children for a moment to learn more of her company's personal connections. Maybe it was selfish to think of how she might gleam insider knowledge to hold close and capitalize on later. She did not stop to consider that her own interest might be genuine or that it was, for once, not purely selfish. Only mildly.

give me your heart

and i'll give you my soul

to just feel a little piece of heaven

Sometimes, with her level of comfort around the woman, it was easy to forget that there was not much Isla knew about her. It was not that she was being intentionally cagey with any of her packmates, merely that they were so focused on the present that seldom was she asked about her past… they all knew, at this point, that she’d been trained as a diplomat but the complex socioeconomic politics that had occurred in her homeland had never come up, not even in speaking to the breadth of her experience in her chosen field.

“Cyran is…” She paused for a moment, a certain sweetness carrying subtly in her tone. It was not the words of an infatuated teen, but rather words twinged with longing and remorse, a reminiscent of good times and a loneliness that came with their separation. “Cyran is like the sun… constant, endearing, watching over me in the day.” She explained, mildly. “I spent much of my first year outside of my birth pack, in another with my mother on a diplomatic mission. He was the alpha’s son, and my best friend… and perhaps even more.” Looking back, she’d still call it love.

“When I returned home after my sister had disappeared, we went awhile without contact… and when I left my birth pack in search of my mother and sister, I went to his borders… they were gone, chased out. The area was so ripe with war that I shouldn’t have been surprised… and so in addition to my mother and my sister, I’ve spent my time looking for him too, and hoping he finds me here should he find himself in these lands.”

Something shimmered like a sinking stone in her stomach. Something green and jaded, not yet existing long enough to be smoothed out. Jealousy might have been the word but she dared not think it. Even when her stomach pinched and rolled within her like an angered serpent.

She wanted to learn, she had asked.

She could not press these emotions to the surface. It was not the place or time.

What would the future look like if this man came to them now? Would he whisk away Nadine from their budding... She felt exhausted. It would have been easy to blame it on the early days of pregnancy. So she decided it might be best to do just that. The rain could become their only sound if her company might allow it.

I'm glad you shared. She whispered softly and allowed her eyes to close for a moment. I'd like to rest, but stay until the storm passes. So that Isla did not give the illusion of wanting the woman gone.

give me your heart

and i'll give you my soul

to just feel a little piece of heaven

For all of Nadine’s intuition, she did not sense the disturbance of her friend beside her as she spoke. Cyran, even the talk of him, could seem to make her blind to those around her and always had. It had been an alluring effect that he had on her from a young age… something that Nadine had always been viewed as foolish for by her father.

She did not catch it even as Isla spoke of rest, asking her to stay until the rain had passed. She would offer a nod, resting her own head as she stared outside of the den, Cyran firmly on her mind as the rain pattered outside. He had loved the rain… loved to charge about in it even as his parents scolded him for it, saying he would catch a cold or find himself ill.

So carefree and wild… everything Nadine could not be.

Fade?