He remembers war.
It isn’t a memory he likes to dwell on, though. He tries not to think about the grim-set lines on the faces of those he fought with. He pushes away the pictures: the righteous glow in the eyes of their enemies, the splatter and splash of blood and magic, the stark white bones of the raised skeleton army. Walter can’t remember his state of mind at the time. What had compelled him to fight with the Deserts against the Valley? Why, after decades of avoiding organization of any kind (much less a well-oiled army of seasoned fighters) had he decided to join in the melee? He is sure it wasn’t his own righteous indignation on behalf of the murdered victims (although it had been terrible what they’d done, he wasn’t willing to risk his life for the dead). Perhaps a desire to assimilate into something larger than himself – a purpose – had finally called to him, despite his naivety on the battlefield.
Or maybe he had simply been bored.
Whatever the case, his innate self-preservation had persevered this time around. Walter remained pointedly oblivious to the machinations of war happening in the Chamber. And when all the plotting and scheming had turned into fighting and maiming, the palomino had kept away. Not from Djinni, though. If anything, the screams of both pain and triumph had propelled him further away from the battlefield but closer to the genie’s side. Not that she knew every time he became more of a guardian than a companion; he often circled closer as she was sleeping and left before she awoke. Sometimes, he had ventured close enough to touch her. His muzzle would hover over her shoulder or her neck, debating, always eventually deciding to withdraw rather than to wake her. He longed to be that man for her (longed to feel her pressed against his side, tucked into the protection of his strong embrace). He was not that man, though. He was more like the mist in the night, there but gone by morning.
This morning, at least, he comes back.
She always looks different on the surface, painting herself to her fancy and whims. Today, she is like medusa. Her eyes are a blinding white that he can’t look away from. It is like staring into the sun (but then, it always is to him no matter what face she wears) and he feels trapped in her gaze. Only her sudden yawn frees him from his visual ensnarement. His eyes study the sunrise of her body when she’s momentarily distracted. By the time she’s leveled her white-hot eyes on his, he looks back quickly, almost sheepishly.
It’s not just his wandering eyes that cause the heat to rise in his face. She seems to not hear his first declaration and he is hesitant to repeat it. He wonders, too, if she knows about his nighttime rendezvous’. The more he sinks into the swamp of his embarrassment, the more he believes he should have woken her. He should have touched her…
And then she closes the distance between them.
Walter can feel the soft puff of her breath on his neck. His skin prickles but he does not stiffen at her touch. The stallion has to close his eyes for a moment, because the desire to is there like a straw pushed to bend by the slightest bit of wind. It takes all of his willpower not to flinch or shy away. The desire to be more man than mist wells up within him, and for the first time, it is easier to believe he can be. All the nights he’d watched her, all the times he’d imagined her hair draping him like a flag he’d earned. All the times he’d thought he could do it, could break down the barriers he’d spent decades building. For her. For Djinni.
She flies away from him when she realizes what she’s done.
And when she materializes again, the mare appears as she always does in his mind. She is the smoke and white of his dreams, his memories; the telltale chiming of her bangles draws him in. Walter is sure of his steps, and they bring him close enough that he pulls the same air she exhales into his lungs. “Jin.” The moniker is short and steady in the stillness between them. He swallows his last reserves of resistance and pushes the curtain of hair from over her eyes. The black strands fall over his muzzle, and though it’s not quite the flag he’s imagined, it is enough. “I’m the one who should be sorry.”
The gold stallion takes a small step backwards, releasing some of the pressure that had built up in such close proximity to her. It hadn’t crushed me though, he thinks to himself. I am getting there. But will she wait for him? Doubt creeps like a fog into his brain and curls around each lobe. Why should a girl that is as vibrantly decorated on the inside as she is on the outside wait for a guy who is grey in every way but his color? “I want to be better.” He says, conviction colliding with the softness of his voice. He moves in again and the pressure squeezes his heart but he doesn’t care. “I want to want this.” Walter presses his dusky lips to her poll and withdraws again. It doesn’t feel like an empty gesture, but it doesn’t feel like everything, either.
Walter
come down from the mountain
you have been gone too long
ooc: sweet jesus. sorry for the novel <3