By Shade
Neither remember where they met
When their hands first touched
Their gazes locked
Their hearts became one
They cannot say.
She remembers only
The set of his shoulders
blocking the sun from her dazzled sight
The arch of his brow
His hand steadying her traitor steps
These etched themselves in her heart.
He saw only
The sweet curve of her
The forbidden violets of her eyes
Felt the hearth-promise
in the slight weight he guarded
Knew only, he had found home.
Who could guess they would tread that path
Skirt the snares of fear and tradition
Evade the tangled nets of honor and duty.
But who seeing them
Watching as they forsook both sun and moon
Choosing instead the promise
laid in their hearts and blood and bones
could wish them to have failed.