_The song of finality is never heard. _

..~•<*+*>•~..

She perched at the earthy ledge of the moonlit lake. Her porcelain legs, admittedly stubby, stirred the hazy water in a mindless rhythm: push, pull. Push, pull.

He watched her, uncomfortable in the silence, sensing the precarious threshold between friendship and sorrow: a veil of lacy gossamer.

Suddenly, she broke it with her piercing voice, sending the silence into tiny, kaleidoscopic shards: the remnants of their bond. “You don’t have to keep pretending that you care anymore.”

Her hand cupped the lake, only for the water to slip, as it naturally did. The earth swallowed it, shimmering with the lake’s fading magic: its scent lingered—earthy and faint, like the intangible concept of a home.

He hesitated, the words lost behind his lips. Things could not be left unsaid.

“You’re right,” he whispered tentatively. His solemn voice wavered at the lonely realization of it all. “I don’t know how to care anymore. Not like I used to.”

The night froze, suspended itself in the blackened air. Nature waited.

They used to dream of the divine, conjured worlds of phantoms and fairies and immortality. They had weaved stories of intricacy with golden fingertips: the touch only the idealistic youth possessed.

They had lived reality and fantasy together, but now, at their lake, none of that remained—their dreams untested.

“I’m sorry.” His head hung lowly.

She nodded once with the finality of a dying star; her light was fallen, the last ember extinguished. Her postured curved softly at her bladed shoulders, and what else could she do, but leave?

“I’m sorry, too.”

As if stepping away from that silky veil of friendship, she left, her feet barely disturbing the lake’s stillness. Her pearlescent dress that had been caught in the ripples delicately clung to her.

With each passing of the breeze, she disappeared into the forest.

Her soul left without any further trace.