you’re miles away but i still feel you
He’s never been a wanderer. Perhaps only in his youth, in the fragmented years between leaving Silver Cove and that brief period with Isnofret and finding Scorch in the Meadow, could he ever claim the title of a wanderer. Each day has always needed a purpose for him. His life has consisted of reaching for goals, of enjoying the daily rhythm, of finding meaning. His family has always answered those desires for him, even when it had just been the pair of them (russet-strength and fire-passion) tangled under the shade of the Jungle. Hestoni’s life has always been guided by a motive to serve with a purpose. It had been serving the Jungle, serving his wife, serving Nerine — and now he finds himself thrown into a world entirely blackened with chaos.
The russet had spent too much time lingering between borders. Although it hadn’t taken Hestoni long to take what was left of his shredded heart and leave Nerine, it has taken him much longer to settle away from his ragged, scarred wife. She has always been home to him. The sounds of the Jungle’s melodies echo in the rough drag of her voice; the warmth of a sacred place of protection found in the caress of her lips; the scents of familiarity and brisk rainforest waterfalls dancing and twining along her neck. The winter months drag on without her warmth to hold him.
Even when spring finally comes, he waits. He spends his days caught in the messiness of his mind, wondering about the child she has surely birthed that is not his own. The deep gash in his knee has healed and left a fresh, puckered scar across the deep chestnut of his flesh. Yet Hestoni wanders (a fraud of a wanderer, for it has never been his way) until spring is beginning to melt into summer. On a warm morning, he finds himself at the border of Tephra, unprepared about politics or plague. He is heart-heavy and slowly healing, but the weight of Scorch’s betrayal still presses against his broad shoulders.
Hestoni is silent as he settles just outside the border, resting a hip against the security of a tree trunk. His face is a reflection of that serious man so many years ago (a face Isnofret used to tease him for, dancing and laughing and jumping until he finally cracked a smile), but the colors of deep sadness linger in his brown eyes. A bird caws above his head just as Hestoni wearily decides that if no one greets him by afternoon, he will enter the kingdom regardless.
hestoni