He’d been following her.
Well, not exactly. Not directly, anyway. Walter knew she was heading for the Chamber, and after leaving their conversation (wanting more, more, more, as he always did with her), he couldn’t let her go alone. She had been right, of course (he’d felt the brief-shock of disappointment before she’d been able to expertly hide it). He was being a follower because he did not know how else to be. He didn’t know how to be a leader; he couldn’t take charge and demand her attention and presence. The palomino had spent so long on his own that it was all too easy to live only for himself. Even when he had been surrounded by the mares of his band outside of Beqanna, he had never felt more alone (the wild horses were an instinctual, stupid bunch by and large).
But now, he thinks maybe he doesn’t want to be alone any longer.
Now, he wonders if a herd is what he really wants. He wonders a lot more, too, but he pushes those thoughts from the forefront of his mind for now.
One must be on high alert when walking within the general vicinity of the pine kingdom.
Walter spots the pair moving beyond the borders, deeper into the Chamber. It only takes a few steps before they are completely engulfed in the dense evergreens. Fortunately, he is no stranger to the place. He knows all of the paths to the heart (literally) of the kingdom, remembers the twisty, winding passageways through the dark forest as readily as the look on his mother’s face when she abandoned him. So with a grimace and a tightening of his wings to his sides (because he hasn’t forgotten the lost feathers from reaching branches and sticky sap – feathers likely numerous enough to make another pegasus), he follows the pair of mares through the gloom.
He is more than a fair distance behind Straia and Djinni, so when they emerge into the center of the Chamber, he is still working his way through the forest. By the time he reaches them, Walter is sure they’ve heard his approach. He’s certainly lost his subtlety and ease of movement in tight spaces; decades spent in wide open plains and shadow-less meadows have made him less nimble than he would like to admit. But finally, finally, he comes through to the other side, more or less intact.
“Remember when you poofed us into the Falls all those years ago?” He shoots the little grey mare a conspiratorial smile as he comes to stand nearby. Her bangles give her away, of course. But he’d know Djinni anywhere and under any disguise, he thinks. Physical cues be damned. “This walking is for the birds,” he shrugs his shoulders, drawing attention to the wings he hardly uses. As if the Chamber lady will care how he got here instead of why he is here. He looks at her now, his brown eyes scrutinizing (but in the most casual way possible). “Which you seem to have a lot of, by the way.” The cawing had been enough to drive anyone mad, but perhaps explains why they hadn’t heard him coming. Other than the raven’s population explosion, the piney place looks unchanged. Breathing in the crisp, evergreen air is enough to bring him back to his childhood, to his unruly days running his legs and mouth off in the kingdom. He’s missed it, he admits to no one. “Walter. A pleasure.” It’s not exactly polite or sincere (it’s not rude or mocking either, at least), but it’s all he has.
Walter
come down from the mountain
you have been gone too long