No Music

Things beginning to fade: the crash of the waves; the way the smoke purled on a clear, still day (that exact shade of grey); a sister's voice; the weight of a dear friend's head against one shoulder. Somewhere far away: the garden overlooking the sea. Memory is not kind. It warps and trembles as it fails, until he cannot know if he recalls the way the wind moved through the wisteria branches, or if he's making it up. Worse: to remember the face of one dear and remember it wrong. To hold a lie in his heart. He has been traveling a long time. If he could, he would tell you this doesn't trouble him. He would smile in the strange way he does with only his eyes, which would make you want to smile, too, and he would laugh and say he never worries about such things. He has all he needs. But he hasn't said anything at all for a very long time. Longer even than he has been traveling. He doesn't look very old. He would laugh, too, (in his silent way) if you were to mention it. Surely one so young cannot have been on the road very long? Surely other pilgrims have spent more hours walking then he's even spent alive? This is true. He can only measure time relative to himself, so it feels as if he has been moving forever, farther and farther away from the things he loves. He wonders what his sister is doing (and cannot quite picture her face) and he thinks maybe she's grown now. Maybe he wouldn't know her anymore. It will be a good reunion when he returns. He tells himself this. Silent. Wordless. Only the soft noise of his breath and the endless drumming of his hooves. He walks now. He moved more quickly before; he alternates to keep his muscles warm and he could move for days, himself alone, a shape like the shadow of a deer passing by all the endless hidden places of the world. He has never been in better shape; he is strong despite the slim, slim architecture of his body. He is a dancer; he moves on soft feet, and his passage is graceful to watch if only you avoid the rare, quick movement of his eyes. He doesn't look back, though it's easy to see he wants to. His eyes almost complete the movement and he interrupts them, turns them ahead. He is very quiet. He arrives now at a gate. Or maybe he passed through the gate before; he is aware only of being in one place and then another, a quick change like one might experience in a dream. Lights; he hesitates, one foot barely lifted, and the trees are changing before him. The forest whispers in a voice not kind. Not welcoming. It shivers down along his spine, caressing the black skin of his back, the white, white stippling on his shoulder which are scars now, white hair hiding scars, an abstract shape like a wing half-folded on his left side and like nothing on his right side. Incomplete. His eyes are dark beneath the sparse fall of his forelock, beneath the swift prick of his little ears. It is a bad place, possibly. He doesn't feel fear often but now it flashes in his eyes, in the white just visible around the darker iris. He could go back; maybe he should go back. In his mind is a fading version of a garden filled with leaves and the voice of someone he loves. He moves ahead.

img by Tildae @ flickr

ooc// nothing special about him (yet ;)) anyone welcome! <3