This place is as much a salve as it is a burn.
As the dull ground crunches beneath his hooves, his grin fades into a more settled smile. Because as he walks, he remembers. As he sees the framing branches of an old oak holding up the autumn sky, the pictures flood back into his mind. Here’s where he stood after leaving the Chamber for the final time. Here is where Violette rejected him, not with her words but her actions. He can see the precise way her stomach curved, full to the brim with the new life it held. He can see her face, the way it lit up with the sweet glow of new love. Further away, Walter can see the copse where he’d found Aseret not long after. His old eyes crinkle to remember her, but his heart constricts. Just like Violette, the dusky mare had been rotund with her own unborn child when they crossed paths again. And the truth had hit him violently in each case; life was leaving him far behind.
It’s been so many years, and still, he doesn’t feel like he’s caught up.
He wonders about his friends as he walks. He imagines Violette has long since turned to dust on the beach, but he hopes she’d lived as well as she could in the years between. Aseret and Priam he is less certain of – had they been immortal, like him? The palomino strains to remember until another face swims into the forefront of his mind. It’s amorphous and smoky, not constrained and set like the others. She had been different nearly each time he saw her, but those golden rings had always remained the same. He can hear the soft clinking of them even now in his mind. But no, he really can hear them.
Walter cranes his neck backwards, thinking he must be losing it after all this time. Perhaps the wild-lands had done a number on his brain, leeching it for the mindless drones that lived on the other side. But she’s there, running at him as if her life depended on it. His grin resurfaces then, a wide, warm thing that seems to take up his entire face. “Djinni?!” And as incredulous as he is, he can’t help also enjoying the sight of her so desperate to reach him. He’s also ridiculously thankful she hadn’t mistaken him for a woman as many were prone to do.
She approaches with a slew of questions, but he is too absorbed in hearing her familiar voice and seeing her familiar form to really listen. How long has it been? How often had he met with her mother by chance, their paths often intersecting at various points in their lives? Almost as if fate has overlapped the strings of their lives, as if his return had pulled her string towards him, their reunion inevitable. Whatever the reason, Walter’s tremendously glad to see her. He thrills at the press of her muzzle against his cheek, comforted in a way that she likely wouldn’t understand. He’s been surrounded by voiceless, humorless (and rather soulless) horses for so long, that this kind greeting leaves him breathless. And for the first time in his life perhaps, he finds it hard to speak. He blinks his honey-brown eyes slowly before he finds his voice. “I’ve been living outside of Beqanna. A horrible mistake.” Walter looks around, breathing in the familiar scent of the meadow, grounding him. “But I’m home now, thank all the stars in the sky.”
The full realization of being here once again makes his bones feel lighter than they have in years. He flaps his wings once decisively before settling them against his side. Djinni looks much the same as she had last time. He sees no tell-tale bulge at her waist, no blinding love shining in the corners of her eyes. She intrigues him as she always has; she makes him feel more than the apathy that usually casts a shadow over his mind. He wants to return her nudge, but years of cold indifference to his touch stay his movements. “And you, Djinni? What a coincidence to see you right away.” His tone becomes mischievous then, roguish, as if she’s waited all these decades for his return.
Walter
come down from the mountain
you have been gone too long