Where The Heart Heals
If I could feel this again...
The heaviness of your eyes feels like a blessing even when the warmth of the sun is gently stroking your forehead, delicately whispering sweet nothings to wake you up. You know your mother has already woken up for she is the reason the door is open and that chilled winter air is nudging the sun rays to get as much of the playfield over your exposed skin as it can. The teasing play going between the two forces becomes a soothing episode for your nerves, enjoying the lazy winter morning with the sparrows chirping on that one malacca tree still standing in your front yard. The chill draft that swirls to lands on your unaware fingertips, brings with it the familiar dissatisfied woof and one rage-filled yelp, making you smile even with your eyes closed. You can even hear the disgruntled remarks of some boomers out on their morning stroll cursing your poor babies for growing so big and healthy and barking at any stranger that was not welcome in their territory.
If I could feel this every single day...
Your eyes finally open from a dreamless sleep, ready to bask in the lukewarm light directly hitting your eyes. The bliss is incomprehensible; to wake up to the sight of the green that is surviving the winter chill in the garden right outside your room. A few sparrows are looking for an early grub in the pots kept right outside your door, seeming to catch a glance or two in your direction when you stir and let your head rest on your hands to watch the life of winter make you grateful for this morning. More grateful when a familiar spotted figure jumps down from the neighbour's wall and passes by your door with the quietest yet graceful gait.
"Kitty!" you exclaim without any voice escaping your hoarse throat, making you chuckle at your own failed display of excitement. A long stretch that cracks a few knots and makes you squirm while you squeeze your eyes shut; that is what it takes to finally convince you to get out of the cosiest quilt on this entire planet.
It is a task to find your socks under the huge green buffed up fabric but you do not want to step down till you are sure your sensitive feet are secure. Once the pair is found after a round of tossing and turning the poor quilt, you are ready to open your door and step into the garden.
And what a sight it is!
The balmy morning sun is bringing life out into the streets. Children fresh out of school for their Christmas holidays are riding their colourful bikes around while their parents or guardians spew caution at them. Vendors are out with their carts and wagons, bringing about fresh produce while the riveting bark of the bike that brings the fresh milk for some households waits for the man of that particular house to bring out their vessels. The air has the perfect crispiness of winter twirling all around you. There is no doubt that the sun has colluded with the sweet-smelling chilly breeze to bring the blood to your cheeks and fingertips.
The bliss that this simple day can be for an entire lifetime...
A whine followed by a protest-filled howl catches your attention in the moment you are taking in this rare morning. Turning your head to look across the fence, you watch those familiar sharp blue eyes looking you with a sour expression.
Right. This drama queen.
The protest does not stop.
"I'm coming," you groan, "I'm coming," you stress as you walk across the garden to open the gate and walk barely five steps across the narrow road to greet the fluffy boy pretending to be mad at you while vigorously wagging his tail.
"We literally met last night, you dumb husky!" you coo through your teeth while scratching Ghost behind his ear. "You stoopid loving boi. My best floofy boi." You call out as many names as you can to the huge beast that wants to lick you clean but isn't getting the chance to. So, instead, he decides to take your wrist into his mouth, continuing to whine at the same time, wanting to keep you there till he loses interest in you.
"I blame your mother for not training you to respect me, you dumb floof," you state as you make him look you in the eyes, "I fed you and bathed you and played with you when you hadn't even opened your eyes. And this is how you repay me? By giving me scratches and sticking drool all over my elbows?"
Growing uncomfortable- and a double chin, the way you are holding his face- he huffs and jumps away from his fence to let you know he is done with you for the day.
"Ungrateful bitch," you mutter in his direction while he looks for more leaves to chomp on, "I still love you."
Ghost does not even side-eye you. He knows you stand there smiling at him while he goes about eating anything green in his sight, only bothered when he hears the rev of a car pass by. The attention span to that little distraction is short-lived too.
"Okay," you sing in a way you think might get on his nerves, "I'm going back then. You won't get to see me till our late night walk."
Any little hope that this dog with an attitude would actually look up at you is gone when the same car comes back. Let's see if that car can feed you pancakes.
Still looking at the white-furred beast, you are hurt right in your feels to watch his huge paws go up on the fence again to judge whoever sits in the car that has stopped right by the side of your house, the panting paused to scrutinise the strangers in the SUV with tinted glasses.
"Really," you nudge his lower jaw as you address him with a simmering gaze, "I get a howl and yank on my hand but some stranger gets a full minute of silence?" You nudge his jaw again, not really liking the point-blank stare he is giving to whosoever is getting out of the car behind you.
You are about to nudge him the third time when a voice freezes your hand mid-air.
"I guess he does not like my presence that much."
The heaviness of the voice with a gravity of its own stops everything around it for an elongated moment. Even with the cold surrounding you, the warmth that engulfs your chest is far more evident over your skin once all the nerves light up at the thought of turning around and finding him standing there.
So, you do.
And the smile that escapes you is far brighter than this December sun. "Heimdall."
It is heavenly to hear his name from you after what seems like months stretched into ages. What acts as a balm to his heart is watching your face with carrying the same perfection it did the first day he met you; maybe even lovelier. If he had a sister...
"Kira," he sweetly announces into the air before wrapping his arms around you for a hug; something that you gladly welcome, and embrace him back.
"I missed you," you squirm into his coat, smelling the mildly spicy cologne he is wearing.
Heimdall chuckles. "Who's bothering you? Just point me and I'll take care of the rest."
You giggle and draw yourself back to look at those warm honey eyes. "I missed you because I hadn't felt like someone was spying on me for the last two months. Almost felt weird." You shrug, pressing your lips to stop the smile from pouring out while Heimdall groans.
"I'm never ever going to hear the end of, am I?" he closes his eyes and sighs. You shake your head before snickering.
The pleasant meet-up makes you forget about the prying neighbourhood that has eyes everywhere, lurking behind every curtain to look at this strange, well-built man coming out the blue in an expensive vehicle to hug you- a single woman who should have been married by now instead of meeting strange men, according to them. From the rooftop to the eyes that are pretending to buy vegetables and groceries, everyone is centred on this tall dark and handsome man putting all their sons and husbands to shame.
"So-" you poke him in his abdomen- still surprised it's hard as a rock- "what brings you here?"
A knowing nod and a deep inhale is all Heimdall gives you for a moment, his habit making his eyes wander everywhere to look for anything unusual. "I...uhh...well-" he inhales through his teeth this time- "we wanted to check in on you. Wanted to see how you were doing. Because everyone misses you back home."
"Oh." You feel your breath stuck in your throat. Your inner voice is already elbowing the corner of your nerves, wanting to hear you speak the name for yourself. But you just shove her back into the sleepy comfy corner for the moment.
"Yeah," Heimdall smiles, "Zair misses you because he, and I quote, 'cannot even with this new temp some boomer hired in Kira's place'."
You snicker. Typical Zair.
"Yigrette misses you because it's mundane living with men in the house after a while."
"Aww," you feel for your sweet keeper.
"Fenrir misses you too, obviously. He has made your bedroom his bedroom. And it has been hard getting him to come out of there now."
That floofly baby. I miss him too.
Ghost hears that thought and the very next moment, his paw comes to tap on your shoulder and look at you with every ounce of judgment his blue eyes can hold towards you.
"And Robert too, now that he is all healed and is ready to take more bullets."
"Noooo," you groan into your palms. That idiot.
You wait and watch Heimdall smile at you, standing there as your inner voice is wondering- with her face resting in her palms and legs in the air- if there is anyone else who is missing you.
"Soooo...-" your voice trails away as you wipe your thoughts by rubbing your hands on your pyjamas- "everyone misses me, huh."
Heimdall is about to nod before he stops and creases his brows, forcing you to furrow your own brows in return. "Mm...not everyone though."
You can feel the little sinking feeling before your heart has even taken a dive from the board it currently stands on. "Hm?" is all you can bear to say.
"Oh, it's Loki. I was talking about Loki. He doesn't miss you," Heimdall shakes his head.
And your heart doesn't even do a routine; it just takes a sad plunge into whatever waits for it down in the pits of unwelcoming sadness.
"Oh," you inhale the cold air to soothe your insides that are simmering now for some reason, "that's...good. That's good. He isn't missing on work. Or cursing me for not being there to do my work." And just like that, you are trailing into a long train of afterthoughts to console yourself. "That means he is doing pretty well in my absence...which is good...for uhh...for the company. Hmm."
Heimdall cannot help but smile at the sorry look on your face to think that your boss does not care about your presence- or absence in this matter. Those y/e/c eyes are at the verge of questioning some major emotions as they let the Watcher's words sink in. It takes a lot more than a dig at lips by his perfect teeth to stop him from giving it away.
"No," he finally blurts out, grabbing your attention while internally cursing himself to put you through that for a few seconds of entertainment, "you are thinking in the wrong direction."
This time you look at him in confusion. "Heimdall, what are you tryin-"
"He does not miss you," he continues, still looking at you when his arm extends by his side to open the door to the back seat of the SUV and relish the two-second delayed reaction, "because 'missing' would be an understatement."
The last thing he remembers is the blur of the days that have gone by till he is once more standing at the single path of stone decorated with everything that he declares too delicate for this world. Deep inside he has nothing but love for them. Everything too pure for this universe resides in this little ecosystem at the edge of where his world begins. From the ferns and creepers to the fishes and flowers- every little cell has a story of surviving all those perils to come down the path of evolution as much more beautiful. He stands right there and stares straight down the path that leads to the corner that he had begun to cherish some time ago. He pauses his day there, before every break of dawn and every splay of dusk, waiting. What exactly he waits for, no one knows. Some onlookers think he has gone much more insane after the brawl he barely crawled out alive from. They wonder what he keeps looking at in that corner, watching the sun both rise and set there.
Some feel empathy for him. Yigrette walks by the lounge every single day to witness this little ritual of her master. Her soft heart aches a little for she knows somewhere he feels the absence of the one little alum that settled all the dirt inside him till it was present in the murky waters. But she does not know the depth of that emotion, neither does she want to insult her master by trying to measure it somehow. And the last time she sees him, he walks towards that edge in the night.
He remembers stepping barefoot on that cold stones carrying the chilly impression of the foggy weather outside that has shrouded the vastness of his estate into one quiet graveyard where even the lights of the city do not reach. The distance- thought not much- feels worth an eternity for him as his heart accelerates. The only thought riding the unstoppable train inside his mind is the ghost of a chance of seeing you there.
The lights turn on once he enters the space- they turn on for him to stare at the empty space that was once thought of as a decent wing to match the rest of the house, not really knowing what weight it would hold in the future. And here he stands, contemplating whether this part of his house had ever felt so bland before. So...hollow.
He is slowly killing himself on the inside to refrain himself from touching anything for the fear of diluting your essence- or whatever is left of it- and instead, he does what he has watched you do a hundred times over.
The tiles are cooler than they were the last time he laid down on them. The only time he entered your abode.
That time when he watched over you for endless nights till he has to be forced to sleep for his health and yours. But how could he? You were surrounded by wires and tubes, and beeping machines that scared him even at the slightest beep. He rose up to look at you for any movement of discomfort when he himself was experiencing pain that would have bedridden any other ordinary man.
Not wanting to get away from your side, he laid himself down out in the lounge. And then he found out why you did this after a long day.
It feels nice to let the cold floor take away all the unnecessary thoughts swinging inside his head. Little fears that crowd his mind dissolve and drain down into the ground. Then, for the first time in the past few weeks, he lets his conscience paint a picture of you drowning in happiness. Even as the fear erodes the edges of his heart- that you are happy somewhere other than here- he finds comfort in your smile that is still fresh in his mind. Even though the dark clouds loom on those waves- the thoughts that tell him you have forgotten him- he still lets your laughter roar through his existence. A delicate experience in the cold of December.
Today sleep comes earlier than he anticipates. His eyes are heavier than they usually are. He wants to give in to the arms of slumber because the last time he slept like a baby was when you were healing. He wants to walk towards the lullaby of this pretty siren till he notices it is the first time he has felt such sleep take over him ever since you have been gone.
Hold on a second...
He opens his eyes- barely- and gets up on his elbow. "Yigrette," he wants to shout but the name is just a questionable statement as he feels his limbs get heavy.
There is a silhouette of a figure patiently walking towards the lounge that is a hazy picture to his eyes. But his brain still works enough to realise he has been somehow made a victim of forced unconsciousness.
Feeling his face touch the cold tile of the floor, he vows to take them by the throat- whoever spiked his drinks or meal and made the terrible decision of knocking him out cold.
And everything goes dark.
Dark...till he can hear a familiar giggle somewhere in the void. Along with a sweet aroma that brings to the surface memories that were feared lost.
His heart wants him to reach out for that voice that is beginning to clear the fog inside the dense forest that is his mind. And so the heart does what he does best, it slows down too much to let the brain jerk him awake.
The sun shines right over his face when a door opens somewhere, flooding his being with brightness through and through. He has to make an effort to open his eyes after a much-needed sleep, watching the rays hit his smaragdines till they are filtered and washed away by the one face he longs to see for the rest of his life.
"Loki?" you call out with the softest emotion on your face as the sun rays reflecting inside the car lets your features shine for him.
He blinks; still trying to figure out if it is a dream or if you do stand in front of him.
"....Kira?" That voice wants to give all its strength to call out your name, wanting to bring you into existence if you are a figment of his imagination- something that is his worst fear of all.
And there you stand with a smile painting your lips for him, taking his first conscious breath in this new morning away. And all he wants is to pray to some force to not let this be a twisted nightmare.
"It's good to see you...sir."
And that full-toothed smile melts him- front, back and sideways- while the world watches from windows and roofs, questioning Fate and her strings, for better or worse.
If I could feel this again...I would want to feel it with you.