Breathe (excerpt from the Hunter series)
The truth hidden behind calm and breathwork (mid-series, somewhere around book 6/7)
„Breathe.“
.
The memory suddenly jumped into my mind, clear like the waters of that one hidden bay in Dothadar.
I‘d done this before. I‘d gotten past this before.
.
„Slow down. Concentrate on your breath. Slow.
In.. . .
Out.
. . .And in ... “
His soft, soothing voice. Its warm tone in my ear as if he were standing next to me. Quiet, like trees softly swaying. He had always been my safe place.
. But that wasn‘t Dothadar.
I could see the surroundings more clearly now, the more the memory crept back, enveloping me like Ommá‘s cozy blanket when I had been very little.
.
***
.
I am small in this memory, too.
And the trees and ferns and high grasses and all the other plants and soft wood sounds, the tiny gurgle of that small creek surrounding us, they are the sounds of home. The place where I grew up. The woods we‘ve lived in for longer stretches than we‘d ever be in the hut near the village. Curious.
I should be older in those memories, shouldn’t I?
.
„Here. Give me your hand, hm?“
His then-big one a softly extended offer. Relaxed. Unthreatening.
The cool smoothness of his skin as my small fingers hesitantly stretch out to touch and relax into the open embrace of his, slowly, softly, cupping mine, then drawing my hand towards him in an just as unhurried motion. Towards his own chest, laying my hand down flat on that stable surface, his own still on top of mine, softly. Always softly. „There. Can you feel my heartbeat? Notice how slow my breath is? Concentrate on that.“
I can feel his bright cloud eyes on me. Holding, not judging. His heart beating out a slow, hypnotic rhythm beneath my hand. His chest softly rising and falling; the same, slow rhythm beneath my hand.
„Try to breathe with me. Keep to my rhythm.“
His soft, slow voice is almost as hypnotic as that heartbeat.
I do my best to match the rhythm of my breathing to his. But it‘s hard. Real hard. Despite how strong and clear the template to follow is.
„I‘m scared,“ I whisper. „They‘re … they’re looking for me. Please. Please. Don’t let them find me?“
. For a second, his brows draw together. But he doesn’t say anything, just softly begins to tap my hand on his chest, in time with his breath, his heartbeat.
. „It’s okay. Concentrate on my breathing,“ he says eventually, still tapping my hand, like a butterfly‘s wings fluttering against my fingers. Time slows to a fraction of its normal pace. There’s no danger here, his bright eyes say, searching my face. If there‘s anything here that‘s dangerous, it‘s him — and he‘s here to protect me, the soft quirk of his lips seems to whisper. Nothing will get past him. The shadows here are old friends, anyway, not strangers. There are no enemies in this clearing, just the old grandfather trees murmuring their assent.
„In.
…
Out.
….
And in…“
I can see the soft exhale on his lips, just as I can feel it beneath my fingers. I try to exhale as long as he does. My gulp for air is still a bit quicker than his soft intake, his tapping. I try harder. His voice, his steady rhythm, his mantra seem to turn into some kind of hallucinogenic. I lose sight of our surroundings. The only thing still existing is him. I barely even feel myself.
.
Until suddenly I do. Or at least I feel the breath in my chest, woken by something I can’t discern for a few moments. Something like… the push and pull of soft wings. There‘s that butterfly again. Only now it‘s not just resting on my fingers, it‘s on my solar plexus.
A flush of heat races through me as I realize he‘s put his other hand on my chest, palm on my belly, right smack in the middle, fingers splayed out towards my ribs. I never even noticed how it crept up there. Eyes closed or not — how could I not notice that? Right up until his fingertips began softly drumming out that same rhythm at the apex of the bow of my ribs, where they meet my lungs.
Softly tipping and tapping, just once every few moments, his fingertips brushing against that space where my muscles are supposed to drag my lungs, making them remember their job. But I can feel the release of that slightest pressure as well, as his fingers drag down the merest bit, indicating how my lungs should widen downwards and out, out, Out. Then upwards again, brushing against my rib’s apex, pushing slightly inward again. And in… in… in.
. It should make the process easier.
But for a moment I stumble; in my sudden consciousness, my heartbeat abruptly trying to race towards an unknown goal again instead of relaxing, and I have to fight to keep my deepened breath from jumping and running right after it. It‘s just the softest touch. Barely a touch at all. Why is it making my brain all jittery? As if there were some string strung tightly right through my middle and he‘d accidentally touched it, setting it to vibrate. I can feel it wanting to sing. To lean in, asking for some more of that soft caress. It is like the sudden rush of water into the void once the buildup of pressure has finally burst away the rock fall blocking the fissure; the entrance to its usual underground course in the mountains, down in a chasm where all that water can’t go anywhere else. Freeing. Euphoric, even. As if the stream could sing in joy at the hurtful blockage finally being removed. As if it could sing a rhapsody in multiple voices, an entire choir joining in.
Soothing. Soothing as the pressure finally lifts and the highest note soars above, reaching its apex.
I suddenly feel like falling, all tension gone from my muscles, barely able to keep myself up. All I want is to snuggle up against that feathery touch, let my conscious self be taken away by that stream of peace I‘m now submerged in; that… smoothness coming from him, enveloping me like warm, soothing water, like shade in high summer. I was so… so… thirsty.
He‘s like a sparkling mountain stream, cool and refreshing, as if I had been close to dying of heat stroke.
Balance, I want to stay submerged in that embrace forever.
.
***
.
When I returned from the memory I hadn‘t remembered before, not in full, I was sure of a few things more:
For one: That. That was when the floodgates first opened.
It was crystal-clear to this version of me, in the torrent of sheer relief I could still feel encapsulated inside this hidden memory. It made me wonder why my own mind had hidden it from even myself. Had that been me recognizing I‘d been doing something forbidden, something bad, subconsciously—and being unable to face it? Or had it happened later? Had it been a part of the growing suspicion, and my growing despair, that others were different in ways that had been too hard to describe, too hard to even recognize in full? Because I had still borne parts of those memories, just not that one. That tiny detail of [what it what meant; what had happened in that moment]. Or how young I truly had been when it first happened. It hadn‘t been a conscious choice. Like so much in my life.
.
The second thing?
I had been the one who blocked it. It had been me all along.
I‘d done him yet another disservice, blaming that on him, in my anger and confusion about his rejection. I had been the one who’d done that, no one else. Obviously subconsciously, instinctively—but I’d done it nonetheless. I hadn’t recognized it for what it was, and I‘d been afraid. Afraid for my life. No one must see me. Not like this, was what my instincts had been telling me all that time ago. They‘d kill me.
So I had frozen, and shut myself up and away.
.
Just as I had done right now, using that buried memory of my mentor calming me down to help me remember how to do it.
.
I could do that? Huh.
More importantly, though — that could mean only one thing.
Someone had just been trying to find me. And it sure a hell was not my brother.
.
Beautiful