"It's called nostalgia," the Outsider said after a time. Though to be fair, he was not an outsider here, not really. Once upon a time this was home, and in some strange way the Sonata still was. Here he was someone else entirely, an old and distant memory; forgotten. Someone who hadn't graced the Sonata with an appearance in years, yet alone Gaia itself. He had changed, this supposed Outsider. Home hadn't, though. Home never changed. It was in the smell of pines and and drafty floorboards, in the shape of rafters and oft-ventured alcoves above. It was in floorboards that creaked and the sighing of the wind.
Home was in the memories of youth.
The sign said Closed, but to the proud and bold, that meant but little. He had closed the door behind him and walked on slow, sure feet, his ruby gaze sliding slowly from chairs and tables, to stairs that led above and below, to the bar counter, dusty with disuse. Nostalgia, yes, that was the word for the feeling he felt, more than a decade spanning this and the first moment he stepped through that threshold. "Chance," he breathed into the quiet, bringing life again to the empty room, like a prayer to summon the man himself. "Vincent, Tai, Dai, Mydred, Sassy..," he trailed off, the last name a whisper, soft and reverent. They were all prayers those names, like fondnessess spoken of the dead.
He took a seat at his table, in his chair, neither too far from or too close to the bar, and leaned, settling his elbow on the table and resting his chin on an upraised palm. He didn't turn on the lights, he did not speak anymore, but he watched, eyes gone used to the bleak and black. He looked at memories, shades of the past. Dai in the rafters, Tai giggling somewhere, Chance and Sassy at the bar, contented lovers, Mydred a ghost of a man, coming and going as he pleased, and Vincent, the giant. There were others he thought about, this interloper, other names and faces that he considered, but he wasn't as nostalgic for them as he was for the ones he saw now. He didn't miss them as he did those few he named.
He'd leave soon, he knew. He would leave as quietly as he had come, with every left as he had found it, but for now he was content, indulging in nostalgia, and the subtle ache that followed; that happy melancholia. These were glad times, he thought. Pleasant even when they were not. Friends, loved ones, family all, he thought of them now and thought of them still. Ten years, an awfully long time by any standard. Ten endearing years. If only he could relive but a few of them.
"Happy holidays," Roen murmured to ghosts and specters. "Happy holidays..," he breathed again, sighing.
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