It has been so long now since he returned to the meadow that it almost feels foreign.
Such a peculiar sensation, considering how many dozens of years he has spent here. Outside of the Tundra, it was the only place that ever felt like home. A feeling compounded by how drastically things had changed when he’d returned after so much time away. The meadow the only thing that felt familiar.
And yet.
Heartsick, the world looks different.
Around the blur of the gold leaching out of his eyes, there are so many things he does not recognize.
He drifts, driven by his want for it to feel familiar again.
A relic of the past that he is not ready to relinquish yet.
Perhaps all that sickness in his chest has made him nostalgic.
He happens upon her by accident. And he stops and the gold pools at his feet, an endless stream. He wonders where it comes from sometimes, why it never stops. How peculiar a color it makes when mixed with the blood that sometimes drips down his forehead.
He does not immediately speak, for there is nothing to immediately say. Instead, he exhales a wavering breath and turns those eyes -- such a stark blue against all that gold -- on her.
“Hello,” he says, “I’m Jarris.”
He does not know why he introduces himself. Or why he has stayed his restless feet at all. Except that the conversation was part of it once, so many years ago.