"Things can't help but fall to ruin here," Ampere said quietly. Her gaze, normally a livewire of electric blue, had dimmed into something more akin to water, absorbing light, and pain. In some small, stupid way, she felt responsible for Buchephalus. She had invited him in after all, but did he know everything that he stepped into once he walked from the Threshold? Helovia was full or horrors,
but where isn't? her thoughts asked. She fell silent, unable to answer herself.
Was Kari a victim to one such tragedy?
The questions penetrated the beauty of the structure. Its colorful glow lost its awe, replaced instead with some cold, hard feeling that settled in the bottom of her heart. All she could see was a lie painted over, so it didn't seem so obvious. Ampere turned away from it, hooves passing from stone to grass with a quiet scuffing.
"Perhaps he was taken," Ampere said after a moment, the words hard to admit to, particularly if it had been her duty to watch him. She glanced sidelong at Serenity, wings loosening against her back, trying to shrug off the worry uncoiling inside her gut.
"He would not be the first... I have seen others be stolen, and know the herd in the North, the Basin, is unkind to visitors." She was also terse with strangers on the borders of her orange sands, but she did not take them, hurt them, hold them. She had no proof it was them, but the continued and peaceful existence on their winter throne had always unsettled her. Did no one else care what they did?
"There is... much injustice in this world, most often perpetrated by our own kind." Ampere's voice flopped out like a sigh. She felt defeated, when before she would have been outraged, yelling, flaring, zapping with unconstrained energy to right all these wrongs. Time and failure had shown her that it was an impossible feat.
Is it? some part of her asked, nudging her passion, like a small flame being blown back into an inferno.
Alone it is.
"Unfortunately it's allowed to exist, gone ignored or uncontested by everyone, so long as it doesn't affect them." Bitterness colored her tongue now, making her words sharp and hard.
"It isn't right." Her features were taut with sternness. As she spoke she had turned, looking at each of her companions, ice replacing the water in her stare. It glinted, like cold metal.
"Just because it seems impossible to stop, does not mean it isn't worth trying." Her flame roared.
"Does the shore ever give up to the ocean? It rolls in, relentless, wave after wave, but the shore remains We should be like the shore. We should try... if not..." she trailed off, suddenly aware she was over speaking. She couldn't sleep at night if she let crimes go unanswered, but she would not be surprised if they, like others, were never troubled. She couldn't afford to lose more friends over her dreams, not when that's all they remained, unable to be made real at the power of her own hooves and wings.
Then again, maybe it was better to stand alone, so long as you stood.
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