She says it and his heart stops.
She says it and he can’t breathe.
It is all he’s ever wanted since he was born, all he’s ever chased over the many, many years of his lonely life. Hindsight teaches him why he’s been the way he has. Looking back, he sees that it has given him a sharp tongue and a bitter mind. It has run him out of would-be homes and away from those he considered friends. It has made him a hermit that desperately believed he wanted to be alone, that he chose to be cast aside rather than forge ahead with every relationship he’s ever formed. It has made him a stranger in his own skin, not the golden knight his appearance would otherwise suggest.
Love has been his keeper, and now it sets him free.
She does. But he can’t meet her eyes at first. Walter doesn’t want her to see the tears welling up in his own. The emotions of others have always been easy to him: he feels their sorrow, their happiness, their anger. But his own have never been understood or readily available. Now, buried in Djinni’s mane, so many repressed emotions course through him all at once that it’s almost too much for him to handle. Almost. He wants to be strong for her, though, in the wake of her truth. Strong, because he’s been an unwavering pillar for three years and he doesn’t want to crumble now. So he holds tight to the moment, to her, until she pulls back. She pushes his hair out of his eyes and he returns her smile with a watery one of his own - still not composed but he finds he doesn’t care.
The Nerinian sun shines on both of their varying shades of gold, brightening the space they occupy. He remembers all the days he’s watched it arc across the horizon, its light dipping against the tops of the waves and gilding them. He thinks that they were all worth it, ruts in the sand and cold nights and all. It isn’t the forever home he’s pictured, but it is where she would return to. She is surprised he stayed long after she left for Sylva. To that end, he shakes his head gently, his straw-like locks falling back over his face. “I knew you would be back, someday. It didn’t matter how long it took.” A small chuckle falls from his mouth then. “Besides, we’ve both waited far longer to see each other again, even if not intentionally.”
The salt breeze catches his tail, pushing it against his hocks, pushing him towards her. His smile drops as he moves in again, ready to answer her admission with one of his own. “I was a foolish, selfish boy who grew up to be a man who wasn’t much better. You broke me, @[Djinni]. You broke me and I needed to be broken.” Walter bows his head to place a soft kiss under her neck, his lips lingering on the tender spot where her shoulder began to slope. He meets her eyes then, holding her gaze in a way he hadn’t been able to before, not with anyone else. “I love you, too.”
Walter
come down from the mountain
you have been gone too long