I feed wood into the fire, hunched deep in my cloak, face obscured. He hulks beside me. Returned to our seperate islands, there are no words now.
The firelight flickers and shapes change around us.
The shape of things can change in a flicker. In the moment of a few breaths a man could lay aside that he is stone, a women remember that she could dance.
But we could not dance - teetering on the edge of change, we fell from the knife edge - back to this. He retreats to stone. I fold away grace and youth back into myself. I was a fool, caught up in a fey moment. Spurred on by the touch of his hands upon my feet, waking memories of dancing. Lulled by his stories and by his questions and the memories of how I have been. But neither he nor I need me to recall womanhood, those graces have no place here in the snow.
So the dance, a fleeting candle-flame, a tiny thaw held in our eyes, guttered and extinguished before the first step. Yet how could I have held him to it? I could not. When I turned to see him standing in the dark, in the cold snow, he seemed adrift - more alone than a single star lost in the heavens - because of my actions. I could not bear it.
My Lord Steward does not need me to be a woman ... I am no more than a sword bound and animated by words. For so long I thought it was enough. Again these meagre rations of myself must sustain me. Yet they taste thin in my mouth, as though the winnowing north has divided the sustinance from them.
