I had meant to spend the day alone, just me and the birds and the trees, but she had something else in mind for me. The birds went quiet, as if in deference to her debut upon this stage, but that was a foolish thing: she needed no introduction. The rhythm of her footfalls on the forest floor was as familiar to me as the pattern of my own quickening heart.
"I thought you left for the City," I said.
My tone was supposed to be calm and even, but I believe I failed miserably in that regard.
I wasn't prepared. They didn't do this. They didn't come back. Especially not so soon. I'd said goodbye to her this morning. I hadn't expected to see her again for years or decades. I was here, alone in the forest, to cauterize that wound.
"I did," she confirmed. "I got all the way to the pearly gates. And then I turned around."
There was nothing for it.
I wheeled to face her and there she was: Indigo, in all her subtle glory. Her skin had turned such a beautifully dark shade of gray-blue and her hair had grown long, the tips of its brown curls dancing along her shoulders. That was a bit long for her taste, if I wasn't mistaken—how hadn't I noticed before? I could've cut it for her before she left, if I'd realized.
She'd put on a loosely flowing one-piece suit, shorts trousers and short sleeves, in a soft salmon that suited her new complexion and frustratingly hid the results of her anthesis. It didn't matter how curious I was, now that she was here in front of me. That wasn't appropriate to ask, even for me. I wouldn't know until she showed me. I hoped she would. I shouldn't hope like that, but I did.
"What about Wilhelmina?" I demanded. "I saw the look in her eyes. She's waiting for you in the City."
Indigo smiled, gracious and wistful in equal measure.
"Wil is as patient as she is kind," she noted. "After everything I put her through, I'm sure she won't mind a bit of time to explore on her own. She'll be there when I follow, whenever that is. She told me as much. I trust her with everything I am and all that I will be."
I growled in spite of myself.
Was that jealousy? Who was I to lay claim on anyone? I was supposed to be past such petty feelings. I had to be better than that.
"Isn't that even more reason to go to her as fast as you can?" I pressed. "There's nothing holding you back, now. You're no longer forbidden from that place and she's already there."
Indigo chuckled at my apparent frustration and I realized with some mix of fear and glee that I'd woefully underestimated her resolve.
"I told you I'd come back for you, Cinnabar," she insisted. "I didn't know how long it would take, but I told you I would. And then I realized that I didn't have to wait. I am here, now, and I am me, now, and I can go wherever I choose, just like you wanted me to do."
She was twisting my words. I hadn't meant them to be so self-serving. I was supposed to give to them. They weren't supposed to give back to me.
In my desperation, I turned mean.
"And what do you want from me, now that you're here?" I demanded. "One more roll in the meadow? A chance to see me on my knees again? Did you come here to make me beg?"
Indigo wasn't like that and I knew it. She'd demonstrated her values so many times over. She'd shown me exactly who she was and I absolutely believed her. But I'd let her into my heart and then I'd let her go. How dare she surprise me like this.
"Cin, no," Indigo scolded, putting her hands on her hips.
Her words were sharp enough to make it plain that if ever she'd seen herself as less than my equal, that was no longer the case. That should have relieved me, but instead it just made me feel all the more helpless.
"You've spent the last five seasons avoiding every question," she berated me. "You've refused to let me in. You've denied me any chance to really know you, no matter how hard I've tried. Tell me you want things to stay that way and I'll leave. I'll go to the Crystal City and find a new life there. I'll be someone else, somewhere else, without you. I won't bother you by coming back again."
I couldn't hide how I felt about that and her tone immediately softened.
"But I don't think that's what you want," she continued, now voicing my private thoughts. "I think you're lonely and scared. In fact, I know you are, because I was exactly the same and you were the one that helped me find my way through. Let me return the favor. Please, Cinna. Let me be here for you, now."
I closed my eyes, searching for the magic words that would stop what was happening from happening, even though every part of me was screaming that I didn't want it to stop, that this was exactly what I'd wanted someone to say for centuries. Why was it that my dreams coming true felt more like being in hell than in heaven?
Was it her?
No. It was me.
"Song told me your secret," Indigo whispered.
Had she drawn closer while I wasn't looking? Could I feel her breath tickling my ears, or was that just my imagination? Maybe it was just the wind.
"She let it slip the last time we were together," she explained. "You're not just one of the first generation of haoma—you're the very first haoma, just like I'm the very last. You've been around for longer and seen more than any of us. I can only imagine the stories you could tell me, if you let yourself."
It was true. It connected us, whether or not it meant anything at all. Alpha and omega, first and last, the red cry of dawn and the blue roar of dusk.
I opened my eyes and let myself look at her, really look at her. I thought of all the lovers I'd taken across the better part of five hundred years. Was she really any different than the lot of them? Would she cut me any less deeply than all the others who had left me behind?
Was any chance of failure reason enough not to try?
I sat cross-legged on the forest floor, letting my dress ride up and expose my burnished red knees. We were in the soma grove. This was almost the exact place that I had welcomed her into this new world. There could be no better setting in which to let her in on the worlds that had come before her and we both knew it. She matched me, pose for pose, settling herself among the sticks and the dirt. Indigo felt no need to keep herself clean.
I wondered if she'd change her mind by the time I was finished.
"I give in," I said, at last. "I'll tell you my stories. But I can't start at the beginning and I can't go straight through to the end and we won't get through them all before the sun sets."
"Tell it your way," said Indigo. "However you want, however long it takes. I'm all ears and I'm all yours, until the end and after."
I frowned. And then I smiled. And then I told her this.