It builds so simply, so subtly. Thousands of moments stacked and layered like bricks — sturdy and strong, though their hands tremble as they work together. Through blast and flame, through blade and fence and stone, they bled blisters and callouses into their fingertips like they gathered dirt on their faces, worn and weary but unbending.

They learn of survival, baking alongside the bricks they lay. Becoming different from their previous lives, they are reincarnated by the blood of loved ones lost and the shards of old habits cutting deep. They split open old wounds and heal, stitching themselves back together at times by will more than by suture.

Together, they live. They break and crack by loss and by time and by exposure to their environment but they live — to see another day, to breath in another night whether together or apart. They gather what leftovers there are, what souls are left. Hold hands. Meet gazes. Plant seeds within metal fences and concrete walls.

It builds — warm, then warmer. Sweet and then sweeter. Gains ground, spreads water and greenery and the scent of something new growing between them.

But their roof crumbles, their home burns, the dead invade and everything is lost but for the scraps they can find and keep. Their old souls are armored with nothing less than steel but their pauldrons are dented and blackened, and hope seems scarce in the wilderness, dark beneath the new moon of drastic change.

Nights pass, slivers of light shine between the leaves as the world keeps turning. His crossbow is heavy and her guilt makes her steps sink into the mud. But they are veterans of a war that started long before the people turned, with scars webbing across their shoulder blades and twined among heartstrings and nerves. They live, they live, they live.

The moon grows full, and she storms like a hurricane, bringing fire and metal hail, blowing open their cage like nothing, her warpaint of mud and dead flesh thick across her chest and face.

It builds.

There is the snap of twigs, the crush of leaves, and his head turns. His heart freezes.

A fissure starts and trembles deep, because she is there, there, there, in front of him, after all this time — after uncertainty; after disappointment; after loss; after hearing she'll make it through the teeth of a man who didn't believe his own goddamn words, she is there.

He's never hugged her, never held her and yet it seems so, so easy now. Against his chest he can feel her heart pounding, around his neck her arms tighten and touching his cheek is her own, the edge of her smiling mouth. She is alive and the fissure bursts and floods him fit to spill over with everything but grief. Their souls thrum in sync when his head bows, drops against her collarbone; when his breath huffs out dry, soundless cries; when her hands touch his face, he can't stop the shuddering in his heart. By everything, they are alive and it's so hard to step back, chest heavy and full and he can't look away.

He doesn't want to. He doesn't think he ever will. Once upon a time that would have been a death sentence. Now? It's anything but.