My Peeble.
The real one.
Their shell gleams like it’s been dipped in liquid gemstones. Their compound eyes are wide, antennae locked straight up in what I’ve learned means maximum emotional distress.
“ELLE!” they shriek. The sound echoes through the grove.
“Oh, thank the goddess. Finally! Do you have any idea what I have been through? The boats, Elle. The smell. The seasickness.” Their wings buzz as they hover in front of my face. “I was inside Kaelren’s collar. Do you know what the inside of that man’s collar smells like after weeks of interdimensional travel? Do you?”
I’m laughing. I’m crying. Both at the same time, which is messy and undignified, and I don’t care even slightly. Peeble dive-bombs my shoulder and clings there, their tiny legs gripping the fabric of my shirt, their shell vibrating against my neck.
“I missed you,” I say, and my voice does that embarrassing thing where it cracks right in the middle. “I missed you so much.”
“As you should have. I am irreplaceable.”
They nuzzle against my jaw, and their shell is warm.
“But we can discuss the depth of your longing later,” they add quickly, pulling back. “Because there’s someone else who’s been even more insufferable about missing you than I have, and I didn’t think that was possible.”
I look up.
He’s standing at the end of the path where the trees open into a clearing filled with golden light.
Tall. Dark. Completely still.
Exactly the way I remember him. The way I’ve remembered him through every iteration, every body, every broken stretch of time I’ve stumbled through.
Silver eyes.
The corruption marks along his jaw.
That posture that somehow communicates controlled power and the emotional availability of a brick wall.
But his face.
His face is doing something I’ve only seen a handful of times in the entire span of our relationship, and most of those times involved me being in mortal danger.
His expression is open.
Cracked.
The walls he keeps up with such careful precision are gone, and what’s left underneath looks raw and shaken. He’s staring at me like I’m the only thing in any realm that matters.
“Kaelren.”
His name comes out steady. No crack. No hesitation. Just his name, filling the space between us.
I run.
I don’t think about it. I don’t measure the distance or worry about tripping over my feet on the stepping stones. I don’t consider whether I should try to look composed after being scattered across seventeen versions of reality.
I just run.
Full sprint. Arms pumping. Sand, stone, and soft earth flying under my feet.
He moves at the same time I do.
And the fact that Kaelren, who does not do public displays of anything except intimidation, is coming toward me at a pace that could generously be called urgent tells me everything I need to know.
