KENDRY
| He does not mind that she does not in turn introduce herself. Kendry understands the preference for anonymity; he has passed the better part of this season pretending he does not exist. It's easy to do without anyone to call him by his name. Easy to float away into the wide white yonder and remain buoyant, untethered as the snow falls and falls and falls, pretending he, too, is one of those softly falling flakes. Briefly, he recalls Echidna and their evening amid the snow and stars under the watchful eye of an owl; where had she gone? Where had everyone he ever touched or talked to gone?
Kendry ducks his head again to continue licking the buckskin's dusky knees. Likely this one, too, will fade away into the void and he will be alone again, so there is no real point in exchanging names. His, he feels, has become like a curse: once he offers it, those who receive it disappear. Briefly, he considers wielding it like the weapon he feels it has become. Why else would he move through life meeting so many others only once? Or, if met a second time— he flinches away from the memory and covers the motion with a cough.
All he must do in this moment is focus on the bleeding wounds. He works his tongue methodically over the next injury until the blood ceases welling, and after a quick glance at the first knee to ensure it has not begun to weep again the pale stallion turns himself so that he might administer to the angry welts scoring her cannons. The work may be mindless but it is preferable to the fog that has stifled him for so long. At least in this he is productive. He forgets, soon, that either of them have spoken at all as he works his tongue methodically over the ravaged flesh, forgets that it is a living mare he works on and not simply a set of stand-alone legs that will carry themselves away when he is done, as all the others have left him one by one by one.
He could spend time naming them all but it seems pointless to rehash the past when all it conjures is so much pain.
This, then, he supposes, is how the rest of his life will go. Day in and day out, encountering others a little more listlessly than before until he is just a husk of himself and it will no longer matter whether or not he can convince anyone to spend any amount of time with him. Then the wind will carry him away. Away. He could leave the Islands entirely, he supposes. Marlena is not here any longer and there are clearly no ties holding him to this place— no mares, no children, no brothers. Why languish when he could thrive?
Kendry continues his ministrations as the mare speaks again, ticking one ear toward her to catch the heavy words that fall from her lips. He's nearly done now, working his way over her last leg, and finding himself rubbed more and more raw by their proximity. It is hard to remember how to be comfortable this close to someone when everyone before has left. Almost, he regrets touching her. Maybe he should have left her on the beach, where she was safe from him, but he can hear the echo of that wailing in her words and it strikes his heart like the clapper of a bell. Down, down into the depths of him resounds that summoning tone. Kendry rises to it as if surfacing for his first fresh breath of air in months— and in a way, that's the truth. He's been drowning in this misery, wallowing in it like a coyote in a dead thing and then whimpering about the rank odor of his coat.
"Lost," he repeats as he draws back to look over his work. "I suppose I am. I'm certainly not supposed to be here." If it had truly been love, truly, would he really have relented to his nostalgia despite the disgust he knew would arise from that decision? It is as if he wants to be reviled and disdained. Kendry backs up another step and lifts his head before giving his shaggy body a thorough shake. His legs are dry, and hers no longer stream blood. "But where else does one go when they are lost, except for back to the familiar?"
He is tired. Tired of this heaviness that seems to drag him daily down, tired of the grief that has wracked his heart for so long it has numbed his chest entirely, tired of the drab and endlessly drifting days that seem to have become his new routine. He needs to do something different, buck this nonsense and regain himself again. So what if those he meets once never return? It takes two to tango, and he's been more than willing in that regard over and over and over again. He is too listless, too much a drifter for consistent companionship anyway: this, then, is what must change.
"I imagine you're at least as tired as I am," he says, lifting his eyes tentatively to hers before his gaze flits away. There is too much pain mirrored there. "If you can sleep, you should. I'll keep watch." He settles himself more comfortably where he stands, shifting to ensure his body still blocks the majority of the wind blowing in. He listens to the ocean washing up on shore and thinks of his balmy conversation with Shenzi. His mind hops from one memory to the next, and he props a hind hoof on its tip as his eyelids inadvertently begin to sag under the weight of this remembering. He is so weary. At least these memories are pleasant ones: the spar with the older spotted stallion, his sudden rendezvous with Tavas and Solomon on the shores of the Crossing, wintering just for a little bit with stoic Banks. Just a light doze, then, he justifies to himself as his knees lock and his head lowers. Kendry slips from wakefulness to sleep with enviable ease, ears cocked to the side and lower lip protruding as he relaxes into his subconscious— just for a bit.
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OF THE LAGOON |
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