The salty breeze rushes past him, infusing each feather, each pale strand of hair with the damp of the ocean and the scent of salt and sky. It’s familiar to him. Ancient. Comfortable. The sky is his only home anymore it seems. The one place he would always feel welcomed. The one place he could forget. Could simply exist.
But inevitably one must land. Eventually the muscles fatigue and broad wings can no longer hold him aloft. His landings have become fewer and farther between of late, but still they must happen. It’s disappointing, to find his feet on the ground once more. But he has grown very used to disappointment in his long life. There is little anymore that could stir him from the almost unnatural calm that seems to hold him eternally in it’s embrace.
The beach he touches down on today is familiar, though only in that he as seen it before. Has touched down on it a time or two when he had needed rest. He had first been drawn here when lights had begun twinkling brightly in a blanket of snow, lighting up the sky, a beacon for any who might see it. But it had been bustling, full of life, and so he had avoided it that night. Had chosen to take his rest elsewhere.
He has not been fit for company in a very long time, and that night had been no exception. But he had returned later. Found some modicum of relief on those beaches. It is an ancient land. Almost familiar, in a way. He had gone North too, to the frozen island. It had nearly felt like home. But it wasn’t home. He had left because it had been painful, to see something so familiar yet so foreign.
He is too old. Lived too long. Perhaps mere men are not meant to live as long as he has. Perhaps he had long ago outlived his purpose, his usefulness. Perhaps he should have died long ago, except for this immortal body that kept him perpetually alive. Perpetually young. Physically, at least. His mind is ancient though. Too ancient for a world so entirely filled with new.
At least, until these lands had surfaced, raised from their graves by a powerful magic. For the first time in a very long time, he had known not everything is gone for good. He had taken comfort in that. Had taken comfort in these resurrected beeches.
If they could rise again, perhaps he could too.
quiet now, you're gonna wake the beast
hide your soul out of his reach
Hurricane
@[luster]