It's getting late, she said, and we ought to be headed back.
But that isn't what you wanted and so you held your ground, firm, for just one more minute. Just to see if she'd yield. Just this once, you thought, give in and let's not go back.
She turns, though, and heads down that darkened road and you follow - you will always follow. Even if you thought you had the dimmest, faintest glimmer of a chance of choice, you would follow. What else is there to do but follow her? She cannot be matched, evened, squared against the world. Her light is the sun and the moon and all that dances around.
She's pulling leaves off trees as she flits along. They scream to you, silently, stop her. Stop her. We need those now in these days than ever and she is taking them. Before their time, she is removing all that we have left before the Cold comes. Or maybe the trees say nothing and you just want to believe that everything she touches is touched by her touch.
Maybe you are touched.
They said, when you were born, that your first words were not in your native tongue. Not in any tongue, that anyone present knew and not just the words that baby's use because they are babies and they can get away with that sort of buncombe. No, these words were words and everyone knew it. There was intent and purpose in every syllable and note. Touched, they said. This child is touched.
And now, there she goes. The one who reached you. And she's calling back to hurry, hurry, the stars won't wait forever for us. And you know that you will, if the stars won't.