03-15-2020, 10:15 PM
No one travels this far.
He knows the answer before it is spoken, long before it forms against her lips but it doesn’t keep him from asking. There’s something about things spoken, the words making them more real or physical, touchable things- it’s not just his imagination, he’s no figment.
Company does not reach here, the tethers that tie them to the world tug them back like a fishing rod- they are complacent in their nets. Druid can not blame them, it is not wrong of them to seek friendship, love- he used to do the same, once upon a time.
It doesn’t last, it never did, the only constant in his world has been the earth around him- the flourish of plant life, the canopy cover of leaves above him. He forgets the stars nowadays, the glint of silver speckled dark, the infinite night sky- how it once might have made him feel so small, such a great big world out there.
Stars do not shine here, but She does.
Her lips coax a smile, genuine, and he knows in that moment that she is no illusion- she’s just as real as he is. As he nears the dim light of her essence, the density of his breath catches his eyes, the way his rapid intake and emission of air hangs like curtains before his lips.
“I find the dark cathartic, if I’m truthful, I like closed in spaces,” and that he did, not unlike the sepia-toned scent hound he harbored. Druid did not balk at the tightness, the closeness of the clustered trees, the depth of the pitch black. They made him feel secure- even in spite of the previous threat.
If he is to die, then he is to die, there was no malady for it- he would confront his end head first, like a badger in the burrow.
Death, though it is inevitable, at least it is just the once...for most of them.
(She lived and died in bitter sweet succession, he must have been a coward to not take her place. Perhaps that is why he no longer clings to his life like he once had, the consequences of his actions lingered on his conscience.)
“You must forgive me,” a chuckle, soft but gruff from disuse, “I’m afraid I have begun to lose my senses out here on my own….. My name is Druid.” Maybe it is himself that is lost, his mind slipping to the past so frequently when met with the presence of another. He must pause before a name is given, he’s nearly forgotten what it sounds like to say it, the weight of it is much more than he expected.
“So,” head lifts, he straightens his stature, “to what do I owe the pleasure?”
No one travels this far.
druid
words: points: HTML by Call