Orithyia closed her eyes when she felt his hand cup her cheek, and it meant something to her - just that touch alone meant that she hadn't lost him with her words. That she hadn't hurt him beyond what he could bear, that there was still something between them - whether she wanted there to be or not.
Then his lips slid over hers, and Orithyia caught her breath. He had kissed her when they first saw each other, but then she had been frozen with surprise. Now she was flushed, sensitized from her weeping, and she knew she wasn't dreaming. She responded instinctively, lips parting as she pressed to meet him, her hands fisting further behind him. Orithyia returned the pressure on his lips desperately, tears welling up again because this felt right, this felt good, this felt like home.
And then he was pulling back, and it was all Orithyia could do not to follow him and just lose herself in the ancient steps her body remembered, let the pleasure wash away any further need of thinking or questioning and just breathe him in, hold him close and be with him.
She opened her eyes to search his, unshed tears causing them to gleam. Her heart lurched when he spoke; every word of their conversation that day had been long engraved on her heart, and time had done nothing to erode it. Boreas had asked her that once before, on the day he took her. Don't let me go had been her response. They had been so high. Could she - could she really go against that? Could she really ask him to let her continue to live her own life... away from him?
His hand had wound into her hair, and he was still holding her face close to his and she knew, just as she knew then, that she could ask him for anything - anything at all - and he would give it to her. "Don't give up on me," she whispered, before continuing softly. "Give us time to get to know each other again, and don't expect too much of me. It's been a long time, Boreas. You don't - we don't," she closed her eyes, causing the tears to spill over, and took a breath before she opened them and made herself go on, "there's so much we don't know about each other. You might not even want me anymore, once you do know me again.
“And," Orithyia swallowed painfully, "I won't hold you to anything, either. But you hurt me. You left. And I had to keep on living without you and – I’m not telling you no. But… I don’t know… if I can go back to the way things were.” She closed her eyes and hoped she was doing the right thing before opening them and searching his own desperately. “But I’m not telling you no. I can’t.”