“So soon you return to my Silent Realm,
bordering the Kingdom of Dream and the House of the Sun,
O speaker of soothing verse and master of poisonous plants?”
“Soon?” There was confusion and then bitterness
mixed in the voice of the grey son of Amythaon.
“It feels as if I have wandered the wastes for a lifetime, or even two.
I have worn so many faces since last I laid eyes on you.
And yet,” his voice cracked. “it is as if part of me never left this place.
All that passed so fleeting fast,
a dance of shadows cast upon a cave wall.
Like I watched it, but through a mirror darkly.
I was ever only a stranger in that land, stranger still.
Here, by your side, is truly where I belong.”
Death stroked his leathery cheek, and smiled
as the man grew into a flowery youth,
his belly sickness and wounded knee dissolving
into vitality. He’d nearly forgot what it was like
to feel sap coursing through his body,
ache for release, hunger to explore
and to test his limits.
Death, as she often had before, asked
“Do you wish to remain with me still?”
“My Lady, I love you as no other, and yet -”
“And yet … ?”
“I have not yet had my fill of this world’s treasures
or her sweet suffering. I swear to return, my Queen. And soon.”
“You always do.”
