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

And now the skies are a bright blue, and wide open.

The streets of Canterlot simply end. There is no sense of closure or departure. The cobblestone streets continue to the very edge of the cantilever city, and meet the edge of a soft, cloudy day without warning or preparation. There is merely the end of a road, and a new beginning. A pair of shops rest on either side of the road, and their strange wall ceases just before the road turns to air. Short cracks spider their way through the stones, though not nearly as many as before the palace gate or near the center of the city. The spiry silhouettes are gone now, replaced by a lovely-looking openness that expands outwards, to the unknown. The sky is covered in patchwork clouds, with bits of blue seeping through the stitches. The radiant glow of the sun is suppressed by the quilted clouds, and the scene is left unusually clear, bright enough to see, yet dim enough to appreciate. The clouds diffuse the light evenly, like the shade of a lamp. Though clouds paint the sky, the scene is warm and lovely.

The wayfarer is found just past the edge of the city, his vivid coat energizing the scene around him, somewhat blurring his edges. Though his wings are in a downstroke forward, he pivots his neck around to look behind. His mane and tail billow in an invisible breath of wind, and his flaming feather lies flat against his mane, pushed down. His bag is suspended in the air, its strap loosely swerving through the air to his shoulders. In the twin liquid pools of the wayfarer’s eyes reflects an incredible excitement, like a discovery or a realization, overpowering and contagious. A broad smile, one meant to be shared and cherished, spreads across his face. Though the happy frontier spreads before him, he looks back.

The artist is the subject of his smile. Her rear left hoof is just leaving the ground, the others having already departed. Over the edge she lifts off, wings caught in a downbeat, synchronized with the wayfarer’s. She sends her regards to solid ground for the soft sky, her curly mane and tail unfurled behind. Her mouth is open, smiling at the edges, as if exchanging a joke of “hello, goodbye.” Her eyes are lustrous with hope, and a closer inspection yields the sight of clear, watery beads collecting at their edges. The dull colors are, for now, dissipated from her mind, replaced with the excitement of a journey, a change in tempo, a new inspiration. Perhaps that is all she needs. Her own bag of tools and collected works pulls ever-so-slightly against her ascent, though it is a weight she is accustomed to.

This is the heart of adventure – the embarkation. All new destinations, all new plans, all things new, require an embarkation, whether it be a simple push-off from a street or the christening of a ship. There is ceremony to it. The ceremony here rests in the invisible point where their two gazes meet each other. The meeting of adoration and hope, of vivid and muted tones, of love’s first glow, leaves the scene with no more to be desired. It is complete, whole, each bit of it filled somehow with color, inferred or otherwise. It is the beginning of life, which these two embark on, both having lived it emptily and alone. The old stones could not have hoped to support them forever. There are greater venues to be explored, other cities, stronger feelings. A cool breeze eases their flight, and their liftoff is one of permanence, of the realization of freedom.

She knows these colors, having been part of them before, having painted them. She wonders whether the outcome is always the same. A mere brown coat is hardly bright, and yet his vivid blue is overwhelming. Would there be redemption of the bright colors, or must she cast her own away on the stones?

But no more. This feeling passes.

In her eyes is found trust, and in his the reciprocal. Hers are filled with effusive light, his with a fulfilled longing, and it is beautiful the bonds that are made by whim. Many say such bonds are forced, doomed to fail because they are shortly formed. The bonds of love, however, do not begin to form in the first glimpse of the other. They are formed long before, stretching out, looking for another’s bonds to match. The bonds do not fit each other flawlessly, but enough fit for two to become one. Love compensates for slight incongruencies, small flaws between.

Some forget to love, he thinks. The small conflicts are enlarged, the correct fits forgotten in the disappointment. All becomes bitter, and hope is lost. Bonds are broken, and both are hurt, scarred by a mere failure to accept the bits of difference.

But no more. He will not let such feelings overtake him.

In his eyes is understanding, his only hope against apathy, of neglect. He wants to know her, so that he may love more than a side of her, more than part of her. Only once he loves all of her will he trust himself to be her comfort, to become a part of her. She is his hope, and he could only hope not to hurt her, to leave a part of her unrealized. He must do his best for her..

The glow is still faint. Their hearts are not yet awake. While both love, neither speaks yet, feeling their way through the empty foreign skies. They are both wayfarers, of some sort at least. They know not their destination, and merely hope for something grand to approach over the patchy white horizons. They grow without roots into self-determined shapes, attend to their own colors. Come what may, they will explore it, be what will, they discover themselves. But only through these gazes, smiles, their synchrony, will they explore as one.