The New Place
He was not particularly impressed by the town as he soared above it; wandering among the thermal drafts he saw the slower life of a smaller town and was moderately bored. The vibrancy, although at first unapparent, would perhaps reveal itself in time. That, or he would create excitement enough to entertain himself. Why he had left was another question altogether, one that could be answered in unsatisfying small parts or not at all. Realistic motivations, much like the truth, were always harder to come by. What mattered to him now was that, at long last, he could leave his past behind- if only for a moment’s time in the discovery of a new place. All he possessed was the simple desire of forgetting himself; for everything else he would let chance roll the dice and the result would be satisfactory to him. Below, he saw the ground where he had left his brother behind, and he let that troublesome thought slip from his mind as the breeze commanded his subconscious attention and the bursting thermal drafts raised him higher into the cloud-studded sky. He had done his brother a favor, anyways, even if he was unsure of what it actually was. Now was the time to leave them and all of that trouble alone. He would not think of it again from now on.
There were quite a few buildings that he passed over, but he emigrated from them as surely as he had felt the need for isolation. In the northern horizon, the sun to the left on the cusp of descending, he could see a forest in the distance- a welcome riparian change of pace. Further into the west it grew darker in the maladroit and ominous trees, but there seemed to be a bit of a glade calling him in the north distant half-light. Eager to forget himself, he sought the potent promised comfort of the pond ahead and the rest assured by the harmony of silence.
From the clouds the blue-green pegasus tumbled lazily, taking care only when it appeared he was close to disaster, doing the minimum necessary to avoid contact with the leaf-bedecked trees. Landing, he looked about: he was at a pond now, a pool of water that resided flat in the half-light that approached dusk. It was quiet, a blessed thing for him, that natural ambience residing in the glade the best possible excuse for noise in his world. He would not stand now to hear any other voices: no, none other sounds that could possibly mean things and especially not his own voice above all. He would sooner drown himself in the still pool.
Trees ringed the pond, oaken and willow and many more he could not name; the glade seemed to have an enchanted air about it. Their leaves had not yet dulled with the seasons; many were still a deep green made all the deeper by the leaving light. Brushes and other plants periodically aligned themselves in the picture, mute flowers giving other shades to the ambience. The pool itself was shaped like a semicircle bowed in just so- like a fuller crescent moon- a peaceful curve of liquid slicing through the glade. The soft grassy banks ran from the trees to the pool, which was flat- no rippling, no disturbance- and he instinctively desired to be like it in the moment. Yes, he greatly desired to be at rest, to cease turbulence and assume a more graceful form, and immediately. His patience for life’s maladies had fast come to an end; it had brought him here after all, and did that not mean he could then rest?
He walked slowly up to the edge of the crescent of the land’s bulge, the grasp wisping around him and softly caressing him, firing nerves that had no desire to be conductors of more tension. Blowing around, the wind ruffled him; the air was cooler in the glade and the sun had no presence here. It had set perhaps, or was merely not visible; either way he cared not. His pulse slowed; he lay down at the edge of the smooth pool, seeing many things across reflected in it. There was a weeping-willow tree anchored by a rock near the shore, crooked and drooping, and all the others seemed to steal its semblance in the reflection. He took a long time examining them: though distorted, he found it oddly appropriate that all things should be concealed by the nature of the world and hidden, with their shapes changed and colors variable in the silvery star-shone beams. Those selfsame stars did not stay in place either, and in two months’ time they would be rendered unrecognizable. Sad sentiment though it was, it was nevertheless better any previous rendering he had conjured. Now the breeze was in the trees, and the sliding of the leaves filling the space with blanketing noise from there to unknown horizons. Blue and light and green in the glade dominated gently; it was all soft and colder colors blissfully sapping conflict; the grass was cool and dew-soaked and he could feel it transporting uncomfortable heat away. He could not have asked for any more tranquil environ; it was a great mental exhalation.
A life of exhaustion had brought him here; exhaustion would keep him there as long as he was able to be. He would sleep… fade… evaporate, like the water drank up into the full air and be nothing more than a piece of the world with no wonder as to itself, no thoughts; he would not think but would still be; sensations of worldly amity would replace thoughtful being. It was the grandest peace he had ever known.
The state of bliss could not last forever.