There is a certain irony at the end of the world as they knew it.
Nothing is spared the punishing hands of the gods: not their kingdoms, not their powers, not even their sense of security. Nothing survives the waves of destruction and bending and molding. Nothing re-emerges untouched besides the places they hate the most, those squeezed in-between the others. The uncivilized, disorderly spaces where rules and etiquette could be pushed aside. The favored haunts of the vagrants and homeless; the untamed, amorphous countries without defined borders.
Like Cordis, though, the meadow has been more of a home to Walter than anywhere else. He has always reveled in the brush of tallgrass against his belly after a long stint away. The wide, sweeping vista topped by unrestricted sky is more familiar to him than even the Chamber. Here, he is more himself than anywhere. Here, he is reset to his default each time he tries and fails to make a living outside of it (in the Far Lands, in the Desert, in the Chamber). Better to watch the world pass him by from a familiar vantage point, make his own opinions where he has the freedom to do so. Better not to make ripples or throw in his lot with the rest of the law-abiding sheep. Here, he is his own king.
Dangerous, he finally decides, when she hardens at his nearness. There is still lightning in her eyes, even if she is bare of it otherwise. She tells him she’s lost it, but he doesn’t believe her. Just as he feels the phantom weight of his wings on his shoulders, he imagines she feels her lightning simmering below the surface of her skin. He wonders, though, if it empowers or weakens her – if its absence opens her like a bloom or withers her.
Walter is bolder, no longer mired down by his wings or emotions. Perhaps it is foolish, the way he takes one step closer to the silver-spun lady. He doesn’t know – or pretends not to know – what her defensive posture indicates. It is easier to ignore the tightening in her legs because his empathy does not scream fear, does not tell him to back off. He knows that she is without her lightning, without her magic, and that is all the information he needs. Her name is merely a bonus. I could touch her, he thinks, and almost believes it. Because the apocalypse has robbed him and gifted him all in one fell swoop; his inhibitions cracked like the earth beneath his feet.
“I’m Walter,” he concedes, looking away (feeling like he’s lost something more for breaking the pressure between them). He rocks back on his haunches, still too close but no longer predatory. No longer a desperate man with much and more to prove to himself. The milling horses in the distance are of no interest to him, but he watches them anyway, lets her do what she will with the time he gives in apology. “Do you think it is worse for them or for us?” He doesn’t elaborate, but he is sure she knows what he means. He isn’t sure, however, that she will still be there to answer.
Walter
come down from the mountain
you have been gone too long