He is heavy in the chest — his limbs like petrified bark. Sweat dapples his brow, and there is a cloudiness in his sight – a type that even enchantments cannot correct – a poison that courses through the tiny tubes of his existence, striking and thwarting all that makes his matter.
She is a summer storm as she works, her hands muddling and concocting. He eases as he hears her careful worrying, ad he minds the beating of his heart: fast, then slow, then fast again, and then slow. Sun behind clouds, then moon, then sun again, and then dark.