(no subject)
It has been something slightly more than fifteen years since he finally buried Gregor. It had been difficult between them since he'd begun edging up to fifty, had only gotten worse over time. Petty fights about worthlessness and age and beauty and, mundanely enough, money and infidelities, things that... simply did not concern Jast. His lack of concern had only been fuel on the fire of Gregor's dwindling years. Skin wrinkling, back stooping, while Jast was still the beautiful eighteen year old boy he'd followed out into Bumfuck, Kansas all those years ago.
Jast had buried his jewelry with Gregor. The promise rings and necklaces and earrings, things Gregor had dressed him with, had marked him with. Things Jast had loved but he knew better than to love things. He knew better than to love mortals now too. They had always been strange scornful things to him. A mother who drank herself to oblivion to forget the way he'd felt dead inside of her, classmates who mocked him for his reticence, doctors who called him diseased. Gregor had been his only saving grace.
Without him, he lost the desire to act human. Without him, he had no anchor, and the winds caught him up and he drifted away. He spoke less, sang more.
Niarkhos understands his singing. Gods, that enchants him. Jast endeavors not to be stupid about his infatuation. Compared to the prince he is practically a mortal himself, if not an ignorant child, but the bird is kind to him. Jast has not allowed himself to enjoy attention in a long time, had become distracted from even Mist and Fallen after a few years. They have only just begun to reenter his mind, old memories of comfort rising up hungrily in him.
Thinking on them makes him feel the loneliness more acutely, and he has always been a flighty thing, responsive to the slightest shifts in his moods. The birds come when he calls to them, but he thinks... perhaps this time, he will go to the falcon. Even if just for a little while.