He remembers everything.
The outer edges, the places where few go and even fewer return from, have been his home for many years. He likes it here, likes the blankness in the eyes of the other horses. He likes how they look at him reverently, as if he was some sort of golden god brought from the heavens to walk amongst them. It suits his vanities. He even takes a herd after a time, fighting off the other, weaker males who try to take what is rightfully his. But it’s not for bravado’s sake that he becomes a champion for the mares; more than anything, he wants the company. Despite all his self-assuredness, he’s still the lonely boy he always was, back home. He’s still the child abandoned by his mother, always in search of a steady rope in treacherous waters.
He remembers Beqanna most of the time.
And eventually, he can take no more of the glassy-eyed stares of the women when he spins tales of the magical place he used to inhabit. He can no longer tolerate their mechanic responses to his attempted advances, as if they are living on instinct rather than their own born-with intelligence. He thinks they are soulless. Emotions are few and far between when he can sense them, and it nearly drives him mad.
Walter learns that romance does not exist in the wild-lands, as much as he’d wanted it to.
And as if emerging from a fog after years lost at sea, he remembers that he can leave anytime he wants. Sparing not a second glance at the charcoal mare he’d spent years trying to breath a soul into, (he’d told her how the Deserts become so cold at night but are worth it for the millions of stars that appear, he’d told her how he could still smell the pines of the Chamber, even now it hadn’t left him) he canters forward, pumping his wings and lifting into the sky. Because he hasn’t forgotten the way back (he’d planned his escape the same day he set foot in the feral world, just in case, and had spent many nights rehearsing it in his mind) he sets his course for the meadow and arrives only days later. Perhaps he’ll not be a god among men here. Maybe they’ll look at him with dull acceptance, but at least there will be a spark hidden in their gaze. At least they’ll have their own stories woven into the fibers of their brains, ready to release them at the slightest provocation.
Summer is at its close, but it’s still rather warm when he touches down in his old, haunting spot. Walter lifts his wings slightly away from his body, letting the tepid air cool him in some small degree. He remembers everything about this place, but already, he’s starting to forget the faces of his mares. Already, he can feel the weight of their beady eyes lessening. Old faces come to him then, swimming in his mind’s eye. He welcomes their vibrancy, their ability to tether him to the past even decades later. And with more of a spring in his step than ever before, the leggy palomino moves further into the sunlit meadow, a lazy grin stretching his lips.
Walter
come down from the mountain
you have been gone too long