He waded through water, hocks subsumed by the dark remnants of the storm. Early summer shaped the squall into something hot and muggy, turning the air thick, almost chewy. The heavy air stunk of burned molecules, ozone, and electrical charges. The water beneath him was warm; a cold ring circled his forearm where the water met air. No breeze scuffed along the surface, the wind turned into a dead thing, rich and lazy and boneless. Flotsam cast askance by the storm floated like face-down bodies, brown and green, shapeless, formless beings halfway to muck already; gods knew the ground wasn’t ready for parentage, drunk as it was, a squelching, sucking mire leaving a stain of grime beneath his hooves.

Soon, though, the earth would sober, just in time to drown once again, and over and over and over. The air, too, would achieve sobriety, pulling moisture up into itself, eventually rising back to the sky that birthed it, rolling and weaving into new, baby clouds, which would grow fat with a mother’s love and, spoiled with it, would throw tantrums and soak the earth with their tears all over again.

Despite his poetic knowledge of the cycles of the world, Hans wished desperately for a breeze. His golden pelt was slathered in a fine film of sweat, meeting the stifling air and equaling out into a bland homeostasis of mild discomfort. He caught the frowning sight of his own reflection, muddled in the mire, golden feathered crest pressed damp to his head; moisture collected in the dips and hollows of his antlers, tears of condensation sliding down the tines like the mournful cries of some pagan god.

Trees with blackened bark fell together, struck dead by lightning and the vengeful power of the skies, reaching towards earth to thrash her highest points out of an ancient, burning jealousy, a carnivorous frenzy of rampant ether happening at this middling level beneath land and heaven. Their forms, scooped out and sharp, resembled limbs in prayer; blistered remnants of a living, writhing kingdom, scratched-out scars on the epidermis of a landscape.

Hans was here on purpose; and he was the only walker passing by, near swimming through the stagnant air, beneath the buzz of insects, the laughing commentary of frogs, and the symphony of woodlark song. It was starting to seem like a wasted effort, the sinking sun covering him in a veritable purple death shroud; it had him reconsidering his place in the ecosystem, that skin-crawling feeling of not belonging. It was a common ailment of those whose confidence was a mask for protection, a fossilized shell given layers in cycles of highs and lows.

He was supposed to be out here, somewhere. That was the game, after all. A hunt, the reaching of a scavenger, the test of an apex predator; an interpretation of the scrabbling signs left by prey.

Hans paused in his search and leaned back, settling in the remnants of plateau grass, drowned, thin leaves folding around his hooves.

He was here, somewhere. They would always find each other, in storm, sun, or snow; darkness, dawn, twilight, or the heat of the day. Under air, under ozone, under galaxy. There was nothing that could keep them apart. Could you truly hunt something while eternally knowing it would be there? That its disappearing would be the only constant?

There, a shadow on the horizon. Cloaked in darkness, cloaked in the setting sun. He turned towards Hans, who could feel his smile peering down on him, wolfish grin beaming out in sideways flares, even though his face wasn’t at all clear.

Neither of them spoke. There was no call, no exclamation or proclamation. No questions were asked-- there didn’t need to be, as there were no answers to be had. Nothing they didn’t already know-- of everything, of each other-- somehow permanently certain and swimming in the figments of an undeveloped future at the same time.

A blink, and the figure disappeared; and yet the fire still burned. The object of his devotion could not be seen, though in this liminal fantasy world, where the edges were warm and pressed together like wet clay, yet to be shaped and full of possibility, seeing was independent of believing.

Hans grinned, breaking into a sloshing, loud trot. The hunt was coming to its apex, reaching that hyper, vibrating time when both predator and prey thrived in agitated systems. The ground began to stride up, gentle slopes topped with sharp rock, and soon the water would be little more than a facile, a brief suggestion of a hazard, the memory of a trial. Hans would reach the top of this peak and spread his wings and swoop down on his heart with all the love and tenderness of a gyrfalcon tearing into its prey, a bond built on blood, tooth, claw, and the thrill of the chase.