everything; everything

(text-style:"blur","fade-in-out")[#everything; everything] A Valentwine for Ana, by Zoe [[Take me to the start.->The Start]]

We met in what can only be described as a wasteland. It was an odd place to meet. But then again, you're an odd sort. [[And we're an odd pair.->Odd Pair]]

''You'' are darkness with exuberance, radiant and optimistic, warmth in the cold. ''I'' am brightness without assurance, anxious and cynical, my mind reeling with frivolous worry. [[Like I said, an odd pair.->The Wasteland]]

Somehow we found each other, so different, in the same Wasteland. A Wasteland, by definition, is a lonely, barren, desolate place. But you were there, [[in the center of it.->a thousand years]]

At first, I thought you were a dream, a mirage whose perfection I created but couldn't fathom. When I met you there, I didn't ask who you were. I didn't have to. I felt like I'd known the answer for a thousand years. I felt like I'd loved you for just as long. We were so different, [[but so similar.->Trudging]]

We chose to trudge the Wasteland together, no matter how long it took to reach the other side, through trials threatening to separate us, to pull on us from opposite sites, or worse. [[We walked for what felt like months.->Oasis]]

(text-colour:black)+(bg:white)[I understood in that moment why you were gone, yet I continued to feel you all around me. You are everything; everything is you.]

(bg:#e6fdff)+(text-colour:black)[We walked until we saw it gleaming on the horizon. An oasis -- like you, not a dream, not a mirage. A beautifully quiet pool of water, so perfectly unadulterated it looked like it was [[[[made of sky.->the pool]]]]]

(bg:#e6fdff)+(text-colour:black)[You sat at the edge of the pool, dipped your feet in, curled your fingers in the sand. [[And then it happened.->it]]]

(bg:#e6fdff)+(text-colour:black)[[[You became everything; everything became you.->what happened]]]

(text-colour:black)+(bg:#cffcfe)[[[The Earth laughed in flowers, it loved in trees, it hoped in rainshowers.->you are everything]]]

(bg:#e6fdff)+(text-colour:black)[The Wasteland exploded into life. The [[rains->rains]] came, and with them, the [[flowers->flowers]], the [[trees->trees]].]

(bg:#fffcc4)+(text-colour:black)[The startling cracks of thunder and searing cuts of lightning are not always as welcome as they were then. But in a world without water, nothing is more welcome than the rain. You vanished in the torrent, but you seemed closer, more present. You were the rain, you were the [[flowers->flowers]], you were the [[trees->trees]]. You were [[everywhere->laughter, love, hope]].]

(bg:#fdf)+(text-colour:black)[Flowers bloomed in the spots where you'd stepped, beginning their blossom in your footprints in the sand, then spreading as far as I could see, a daze of pinks and yellows and whites. They hung from the [[trees->trees]] too, and the vines. They painted the world, dancing with the drips of the [[rain->rains]], giving [[everything->laughter, love, hope]] a rush of life.]

(bg:#ceffc4)+(text-colour:black)[The trees looked like they'd been there for years, even though it had only been a few seconds. It was as though you'd brought a dead, disappeared forest back to life. Hundreds of trees appeared in an instant, stretching into the sky, their branches twisting together into a canopy that let enough [[rain->rains]] in to feed the [[flowers->flowers]], but kept enough out to keep me dry. Vines grew from nothing, unfurling and curling around branches, turning the forest into a single body. [[Everything->laughter, love, hope]] was a part of the same whole.]