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Tides
Summer nights this far north are short. Even so, once in a
while, they still get to him. There is no safe cave to barricade himself in, no
expanse to ground him, humanize him. So he fights it. Change means changing
back, and it's too easy to get lost up here.
Oz suspects sometimes that
he's lost anyway.
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Storms
The trap surprises Oz. Maybe he wasn't paying attention--he should have smelled
the guns and metal and been more wary. Or maybe he wanted to get caught,
wrestled back into that other shape. He planted his left foot square in the
center of it, hidden by pseudo foliage, and now it's too late.
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Stars
The smithy isn't always dark, with the metal-melting fire the only light. The
forge itself isn't even that big--it only takes up a corner of the workshop. Oz
still pictures it that way though, particularly as fall approaches and mountain
winds try to bluster their way into any cracks they can find in the old wooden
building. Less day, more night, and Oz finds himself turning toward any
brilliance he can find, like a morning glory twisting on a string.
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Mountains
Oz doesn't wait for his friend to come across the lawn, runs to meet him
instead. As the sun has been peaking through the clouds all morning, he doesn't
wait for Hellmouth-formalities, just grabs Xander and hugs him. Loosens his grip
almost immediately when he scents bandages and antiseptic and realizes that
Xander is hurt.
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Status
Quo
Oz nods. Waits. In the morning Xander will go back down the mountain,
back to the good fight. Healed and hale and healthy as Oz and the empty sky
and clear water and dancing stars can make him. Back to watching and fighting
and helping and giving and filling holes in others' lives with pieces of himself
until there's nothing left. Until he comes back again.
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Feast
and Famine
There are times, now, when Xander grows quiet that don't worry
Oz. Like when he sharpens the blade Oz made for him, the whet stone droning
out a steady chant. Or on the rare warm afternoons when the wind has died down
enough to make sunbathing possible and Xander toasts his skin to a golden-honey
color. Those times Xander is quiet as well, drifting like the ever present clouds.
This silence is full of shattered iron and broken stakes, though, tears never
ghosting skin but drowning hearts instead.
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