//------------------------------//
// XVI 
// Story: Wayfarer 
// by The Plebeian 
//------------------------------//

This scene is familiar, far up, atop the greatest building of Baltimare. The ledges rise up on the sides of the roof, and a bright blue expanse lies beyond, this time pointed at the open landscape beyond the city, vast plains stretching to the horizon. The formerly-black paint is revealed to be a simple grey in the sunlight.

His vivid blue is about to meet the sky. His back is turned, and he is caught in the moment just before he decides to take flight. At this altitude, the wind whips his mane and tail wildly behind him, like the flickering form of a strange black flame. His wings are spread out, ready for their first push, always the hardest. His head is low, and from his visible eye streaks a row of tears down his face. His mouth is open, but no longer do his energetic barrages surge forth. Only the softest words.

She is behind, her wings folded. Her mane and tail are cast behind her in the wind, no longer covering her face. Her eyes are wide-drawn, her pupils become but small dots. Tears streak down from her eyes as well, and she tries to shout after him, to pull him back.

He knows it is best for her. She will be happier without him. Perhaps she will continue on her own, but he cannot let her lose everything for him. He cannot ask her to give herself up, all that she is and could be, just for a penniless wayfarer. He must leave her, or she will forever be poor with him, perhaps go hungry with him. There have been days when he was denied food for weeks. He could not let that happen to her. He has to break her, for her own good, before she can become entangled in the mess of a life he leads. He looks back into her desperate eyes and regrets it immediately. 

It should be far easier, but he can see her heart now, and it holds him back. He should not have looked, for now he sees all that she feels for him, all that she has already given for him. It makes him feel all the more a coward than a bitter hero. Her voice rings through his mind, and he wishes only to shut his ears. He meets her dark walnut eyes and wants only to shut his own, for he sees the tears that streak across her face. She is everything he could ever want, and that is why he must leave her, before he can change her, break her. He wishes that he had left her alone that fateful night, that he had not torn her away from who she was meant to be. He had, though, and he must return her, before he can hurt her further. Every bit bitter, all his mind aflame, he readies to fly. He can outfly her, he knows. She cannot chase him forever. He must keep flying away from her. For her own good, he thinks.

She is distraught, her tears streaming out behind her face in the wind. It is unthinkable. He cannot leave. Does he not love her? Does he not see that she loves him? It is all she can do not to crumble again. She feels it approaching again, the shadow. Icy fear grips her, the concept of being once more alone, only worse now. Now, she knows what she is missing, and she cannot regain it if it flies away. The dark shading begins to fill in at the edges of her vision, and the tears come back. Maybe he sees it, does not want to get involved with it. That only throws her further into the deathly spiral. She cannot bear it. He is all she ever could want, or need, and he wants to leave. She falls apart at the seams, her heart’s tempo broken, and the tears fly back in twin streams carried away by unfeeling wind. Her hope is readied to leave her, and her happiness with it. Her inspiration threatens to die out, and her will is crushed. She is broken, every part of her. 

Perhaps he is right to hate her, with her quiet reverie. He must need more than her inept mind could manage, her words always fading in the last syllable, always unsure, unsteady. He must need someone stronger than her. Her voice breaks, and she wishes just to close her eyes, be done with it. Just let her wake up some new morning, when he is far out of sight, just another memory, perhaps to add that extra layer of depth to her art. Art is suffering, they claim. Indeed, if this is art, she hopes to be done with it. Let her die instead. She blames herself for all of it. She is merely not vibrant enough to match him. The feather simply does not fit her hair, her colors. She is not adventurous enough for him, for she stands too still with her foul, suffering art. Now, as he threatens to leave, she fathoms no brighter future. She only knows the shadows of before, the near-black canvasses that she has painted. That is real art, she thinks. Therein lies her destiny, to keep painting over the same canvas until it is a slurry mess of hideous brown and black.

What has he been pondering all this time? Is it whether she is truly fit for him? This only brings more tears, for she knows the answer. What if she is wrong? What if he is wrong? She clings to this last inkling of hope, and ties herself to it. It is her only chance, the last bit that will tell her what lies behind his own eyes, with their teary trails. She gathers her hopes, or their shattered remains, and fashions from them a question. In her broken cadence, she voices it: what did he want to ask this entire time?