"How dare you," says Gilda, when she sees who exactly is standing on the otherside of her door. "How dare you come here now, when I'm old and gray?"
"Gilda Greenhook, is that you?" Her guest asks, voice heavy with surprise. He's a tall thing next to any popalon but average for most other races, with hair of fire and eyes that shine with all the brightness of the stars. His shoulders are broad and his skin marred only by a scar on the back of his left hand.
It takes all of Gilda's will power not to slam the door in the face of the wizard, for that is what he is, you see. Instead, she tilts her head up and does her best to look a little less rumpled by his apppearence. There is no hiding the wet look to her eyes, though, nor is there any excuse that can be given for the way her voice trembles, just slightly. "It is, Grissom, though seventy one years have passed and I must look vastly different from the bright haired lass you oonce spoke with."
And then the last traces of irritation fade from Gilda's face. She stretches up and reaches out, the tips of her fingers just barely able to brush against Grissom's chin. It reminds her of days long past, of abandoned dreams, of many hours spent sitting on her front porch and staring off into the distance, waiting to hear the clatter of hooves and the call of a warm, familiar voice, begging her to join him.
"You haven't aged a day," she murmurs, and then she shakes her head and draws back, trying to pull in those last dregs of anger and failing.
"My apologies," says Grissom, with a respectful incline of his head. "I had quite forgotten that time passes differently for our kinds. It...caught me off guard."
Gilda folds her arms over her chest and frowns at him, frustrated that there are tears pricking the corners of her eyees. She refuses to wipe them. "You should apologize. Showing up on my doorstep after all this time."
"Seventy one years," says Grissom, with the air of exhaustion that can only come from having been alive for three thousand ages and who must face three thousand more. "Does this mean I am no longer welcome in your home, Gilda?"
He shouldn't be. By all rights, Gilda should go back inside without another word and make herself a mug of tea; sugar and honey and cream, with a dash of mint harvested straight from her back garden.
She doesn't. No, Gilda Greenhook opens her door up wider and ushers the wizard inside. "When you were here last," she says, a touch sharper than she really means too. "I told you that you would always be welcome in my house and the house of my kin. I have no kin to welcome you but I am a woman of my word all the same. If you wish to come in then so be it."
Not another word is spoken between them for sometime. Grissom takes a seat at the head of the table, in the only chair large enough for someone who isn't a popillon and Gilda busies herself in the kitchen, bustling out glasses and a jug of sugar water, plates and a platter of honey biscuits, chips of sun dried tomatos and salted meats. They eat in a silence that is neither comfortable nor uneasy, but somewhere between, each traded stares when they think the other isn't looking.
It is only when the food is finally gone that Gilda gives a heavy sigh. She wipes the crumbs from her face and stares at Grissom from beneath her graying lashes. "Had you come to my door fifty years ago, I would have snatched a bag from beneath my bench and followed you off into the sun without a single query."
"I know," says Grissom, not quite willing to completely commit to the conversation. Instead, he picks at a honey biscuit still sitting on his plate.
"You know," huffs Gilda, but the sound carries more sorrow than it does anger. "And do you also know what you said to me before we last parted ways?"
"I do," answers Grissom, still refusing to look away from his biscuit.
"You looked at me, right in my eyes, and you told me that I was meant for adventures. A special sort, that's what you called me. It just wasn't the right time," continues Gilda, as though she had been given no answer. "And you said - you said that you would be back for me, when you had found the right sort of journey and we had stumbled upon the right time. That's what you told me."
With nothing left on his plate but crumbs and amber smears, Grissom gives the small popillon woman the most gentle look he can. "And here I am."
"Here you are," echoes Gilda. Quite suddenly, she finds herself unable to meet Grissom's gaze. "I am tired and the whole world has turned into an ache, Grissom, and yet here you are. My days for adventures have long passed, dear friend, and even if that had not crossed your mind before...surely you must realize it now? Seventy one years ago, I begged to leave with you. Fifty years ago, I still would have gone. I'm old now, Grissom, old and gray and worn. You must go elsewhere, if you wish for a companion."
Grissom reaches across the table then and swipes a stray tear from Gilda's cheek, brows furrowed in distress. He has been alive for many years and has seen many more friends pass away. It's a fear, among the wixen, that one day a friend will pass and they will feel numb rather than sorrow or anger or any feeling at all. It is not yet that time, not for Grissom, and he is sad to realize the heartbreak he has caused his once dear friend.
Gilda catches his hand with her own much smaller one but cannot bring herself to smile at him. "I am not yet gone from this world," she tells him. "But my ink has begun to darken and I would be little more than a burden on any journey. It seems...it seems that you must once more leave the Dogwood Grove without me."
"There is no other fit for this quest. I was honest when I told you that you were of a special sort. The last of the first." Grissom twists his hand until their fingers are twined together; old and young, worn and fresh, harsh and soft. "I can offer you no promise of life or of happiness. In fact, I can assure you of hardships and pain and a good portion of misery."
"You have always had a way with words," murmurs Gilda, softly. "Why couldn't you have come here sooner, Grissom? Why couldn't you have come here when I was younger?"
"It wasn't the right time," sighs Grissom, with a sad shake of his head. The wizard looks impossibly old and impossibly young, all at once. It's a look that only the wixen can properly achieve, for they are the only race in all of the world with such an awfully long life span. "I almost came for you, more times than I can count. I wanted too, Gilda, more than words could ever convey. It just wasn't the right time yet. I cannot tell you how I know that, nor can I tell you how I know this is the right time, simply that I did, and I do. The world is about to change."
Gilda tightens her grip on Grissom's hand and then pulls away completely, shifting her chair backwards and making to refill both cups of tea. "Is it? The Earth feels the same as it always has."
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