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Author: Sparkle Itamashii

Title: Grey Dawn

Grey Dawn and its characters, settings, and plot are all mine. Please do not take, alter, distribute, or archive without my permission.

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Grey Dawn

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I like the grey dawn hours best. The hours when everything is so still you can hear your own heart beating in your chest, feel the pulse just under your skin so that you know you are really alive. I love that time in the soft grey light of dawn is just barely starting to melt into the room and you swear you can feel the chill of night receding. The birds begin their sweet songs outside your windows and you are content to listen to them for as long as they will sing.

Aside from all the rest, aside from all the peace and quiet, the stillness and the calm, there is time to watch her. If I rouse myself early, before the grey, before the birds, before anything else has begun to stir I can see her, sleeping beside me. She sleeps so soundly, so much better when she is here with me. I watch her slowly draw breath in the deep pattern of sleep and I can only smile sadly. I do not know how she sleeps at home but I can’t imagine it is well. The stolen hours she spends here, I think, are far sweeter than she finds elsewhere.

Of course, he would never approve of us spending our nights together. He knows me, sees me with her sometimes and I know that he knows where she goes when she does not return to his arms at night. I know how much he hates me. Sometimes I am afraid that he will retaliate, bring her to harm to spite me… but I can hardly stop. Not now or ever.

I love her, you see, and love is a very powerful force.

There is nothing I can do to save her from him. She loves him, despite that she knows what he does with those other girls. I’ve asked her, time and again, to leave him and to come with me, to run away to where the stars aren’t the same and the people don’t know our names. Every time she offers me only a smile and a gentle kiss and tells me “Not this time, sweet. Next life I will love you like you want me to.”

Next time is not nearly soon enough but it will have to do.

For now I will take what I can find, watch her in the early morning grey as her eyes flutter open and she sees me again. Softly does she smile, stroking feather light fingertips across my cheeks. I lean forward and kiss her sweetly, though I am sure she can taste the sadness. Without rising to join me she watches as I roll from the bed and pad softly toward the door, ready to make breakfast and say goodbye as another morning ends.

“Do you always watch me when I’m sleeping?” She asks gently, halting me in my steps.

I place a hand on the doorframe, not turning to face her as I smile sadly. “Can’t always watch something that isn’t always there.” I reply honestly before slipping away from the room.

I like the grey dawn hours best because I can pretend that she is stronger than the night before, that she will run away from him and come with me when I leave. I can pretend that every morning I can wake and find her sleeping beside me, so beautiful. I can fool myself into thinking that what we have in the midnight hours means something, that it can be a reality past morning, past the time when everyone awakes. I like the moments before dawn because I can pretend that morning will never really come and that she will never leave me like she always does.

I like the grey dawn hours best because before she wakes I can still dream that this time… she will love me too.

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