his peripatetic spirit always persisted; and thus to his own devices with no qualms.

@Reverie, who had found husband in the novel coywolf told him briefly of her overdue departure when they crossed paths. there was no love lost, and after keenly flitting his eye over @Dusty Rose for any aftertastes of subterfuge, he picked himself up, and would carry on.

the satyr had found unlikely refuge under her willows, but promptly picketed a fine line the ice until he was alone on an icedrift of self-making away at sea, as if he was the last ice merchant of chimborazo with a devotion to a lost tradition.

nothing had changed.

he glanced at the forest that was in the armpit of swiftcurrent creek without any longing.

he had not mastered his need for connection, just as hadn’t gotten over his insubstantial grudges that filtered out into unimpressive “top 15 reasons on why you should pity me” soliloquies scribbled on the back of some throw away documents, but those were long buried somewhere else in there.


he wasn’t some tortured soul whose eyes were still sticky with pre-birth; as hollow and underused as his muscles were. sardonic smiles, rather vaunting, dally over his head the hold they had over his youth.

he still missed his vater in a boyish way he did not like to admit. again.

he was never disciplined well, he was told, and he was a deeply disturbed child, it showed.

but he had chosen to physically move on. hoping the ceiling of his thoughts would be whitewashed with a vigilance, no traces of anything that lived there, coated with depressing neutral “monochrome zoo nursery” aesthetic off of pinterest.

so he would ignore, and keep ignoring, and ignore himself right into his (early) grave.

the clap of lakewater sounded at his ankles grew closer to druid at the lip of the lake.

he chased the injured duck in the shallows. the quarry of the day picked the lucky five-card hand today as well, as his habitual headaches were unceremoniously shotput through his head again.

suddenly the world turned into dishwater, wet and blurry, as he grunted faintly and sewed his eyes shut, hanging his head in a stilled, pained manner.

his vater's name as spoken word startled him.

in the endless expanse of commentary that played solitaire in the vestiges of his mind, its the card that was always in his hand but played the least. he, who was not allowed to acknowledge his children as his siblings. he, who had been failed and forgotten but forgave with need of paternal connection. he, who ran away when the puzzle piece was too blunted to place.

he turns his head away now, and while he was cursed to always reply in silence, it was a case where it was the only eloquent answer.

unfortunately for them both, or maybe fortunate for the delicate ears of children and old women and the like, his chalkboard-etch voice diminished like a flame with no wind to feed it.

would vater be there?

would he care to see him? after waxing poetic about how he cared for their closeness, but had left again because he similarly couldn't withstand the connotations of his follies?

would he have more children who he would envy—for they could not question the pseudoscience behind his paternity?

he let the buzz of the insects in his head go on. klaus seemed to flap in the faint breeze.

he wouldn't speak.