First summer they saw it, then in the autumn. Now he visits it alone, in the midst of a cold winter. With the charred streets of Fillydelphia faded far away in the background, cold snows fall on empty fields, and chill the wayfarer to his bones; his wings shiver vigorously. He has become unused to being alone to warm himself, though he knows that even all of his blankets would be useless here. The skies are a pale blue, and the morning sun still does little to warm him. From the ground rises the tree, the accuser, bare of its leaves, and the colors of fall having been swept away from its roots. It is a rather sickly sight, though to the wayfarer, it stands for something far more dreadful.
He yet has no answer, but apologies are in order. He has not found his answer fast enough to save her, to give her the love she deserves. He readies to feel a pressing guilt, a vicious, railing persecution, but he only feels his apology reflected back to him. The wayfarer realizes now it has been a warning, and not a challenge. Now, with the tree entirely bare, alone out in a white-glazed field, the wayfarer can certainly relate. It stands alone. Perhaps it too feels the awful cold. He sits at its base, wondering if it should give him a hint, though it clearly makes no move. As always, the discoveries are for him alone to make, for him to interpret and realize. Although the wayfarer cannot truly understand the tree’s silence, its warnings, he accepts them regardless. Perhaps it has seen something even the wayfarer should fear now.
It is the second revisiting, and yet the wayfarer still feels no different, no closer to the answers. He knows she had seen something too when they visited the tree. She painted it so well, so perfectly in its splendor, which now seems a testament to her seeing the best in all that they would visit. She sees not the haze of Fillydelphia, but instead an opportunity to help the wayfarer, to comfort him.
How easily time passes without notice. Only three seasons with her, he wonders. Hardly that, even. Perhaps two in totality. That was all. He feels the shards of his heart, halved and alone without hers. He is not ready to let it mend, he thinks. For once, he believes that he needs a broken heart. It drives him on towards his purpose, gives him the energy he needs to seek the answer. It is much harder to see without her beside. A second set of eyes always sees clearer. He looks fondly upon his past with her. That is a past far more worth living. That makes it, all in all, a positive, even with her gone. Perhaps that lifts a weight off of him, a resonating pain put to rest. Even now, he would not change the present for all its glamor or circumstance. Now, he has a purpose. Before, the wayfaring was, in the end, meaningless. He saw beauty, but never quite learned enough from it. Now, the beauty has something to say, a part of him to reveal.
And what does the tree reveal? He has made in a mere two seasons a love that will echo for a lifetime. He is proud of it, despite its loss. That he can be satisfied with. Perhaps her memory is all he wants from her, that wherever she lies now, in her own paradise, she remembers the wayfarer that she once loved. She will always forgive him, he knows. Perhaps that makes his transgression hurt all the more, as if it should make him easier to wound her. Yet, as he stares at the tree, he knows there is more to learn. Perhaps the answer will yield more, after all, the tree posed the question. There are more venues to visit. Surely, one will carry the answer to him.
This is where she has painted him. He and the tree are not too far apart, he thinks. She gave them both a vivid color, and he remembers the shine she has placed in his eyes. She told him about the shine, once, that she lives for that shine. The memory cuts like a blade into him, though it is of a much happier time. Still, he remains without tears to shed. If that cannot bring him down, perhaps there will never be another to shed. Perhaps he has become numb in the storm. Though hail strikes at him, he can no longer feel his cuts or bruises. He does not like that he should become a shell. After all, it is his heart that made him shine in the first place. His passion is what lights his eyes with fire behind the deep blue and green. Should he lose that, he would lose a part of her with it.
Perhaps it is not out of numbness, he thinks. He surely feels the wounds, though she heals them slowly, he thinks. It is not that he lacks feeling, but the emotion dissipates. Like many pasts, it is fading behind him, though he does not think himself ready to lose it. He calls after it, hoping to catch up to it, but it merely fades on. It fades faster than he can chase it though. She wants him to move on, but her death is a part of her he must cling to. The memory drives him on, keeps her with him. Oh, he has cared, he has given up all his care for her. What is there left?
He and the tree stand well enough alone. Both may withstand the cold, to their merit. They have always been strong, more than any might say they appear to be. Though the oak is fair and young, it stands strong in its solitude. The wayfarer too stands strong, meeting the storm with fire to hold his warmth within.