There is no reason for me to be out here, not really, and yet I am. Taviora is crowded, always crowded, now. Zeteri is strange, as is Alias... Hush... even Sen, they are all different and strange. I do not know why and I will not ask. I just know that it is not a welcoming strangeness and so, I have left for a while. It is as if winter is important to them. Winter is just that - winter. It is cold, bitter and I disappear into the backdrop of life all the same. It is like every other season, simply whited out.
Out here, though, it is quiet and vacant. The trees are empty, the air silent, everything gone. It is as if Iromar had swallowed up the world. It is white, completely and utterly covered by cold and ice. Still, it is... comforting. I feel at home in such a place, in suck bleakness. Here, I do not need to think about others, or what they say or what I am supposed to think. Instead, I simply roam, slow and passive, effortlessly becoming one with the winter landscape. The field is endless, stretching on and on without any sign of another. The lack of strangeness is pleasant. Change is a frightening thing and here, it is stagnant. Perhaps I had changed too much - not myself, no, but my life. I was away from Istas, from Vainglory, and from mother and father; my home was different, a new world and the wolves in it were just as such. They are all strong. They are all bright like white light, both absorbing and radiating. It is fact: I do not belong there, but I want to.
I move over the fields for some time, my pace slow and swaying as I shuffle through the snow. I belong even less out here, where others can see me so clearly; despite the paleness of my fur, it is messy and uneven, unmanageable at best. It is dirty, too, browned over my legs and belly but I can be seldom bothered to care for such trivial things. Istas and Vainglory were the beautiful ones, after all. I am but a worm, sliding and digging in the dirt in order to avoid the light. Today, though, the light is all mine; somewhere above me, it is midday.
Finally, I make it to the shore of the lake - it is ridden with ice, a mirror reflecting the sky. For some time, I merely stand to watch it; unchanging, only reflecting back what the world shows it. It is no metaphor, it simply is how things are. With a huff, I fall onto my belly where the snow is thinnest, coiling up beside the grass and stones. For now, I will rest, staring out into that lake from behind my tail. It is peaceful here, it is quiet and I am alone. As I should be.
wraith
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