well someday soon when the spring brings the sun
i'll sleep, i'll finally
feel better when the winter's gone

Moonlight filters through the treetops, slipping between empty, lifeless branches that are trying to reach out to one another but can’t seem to make the grasp. In the belly of the east, the world feels bottomless, almost pit-like, something that has people and bodies and existences falling endlessly, never seeing one another as they plummet at different speeds. The feeling of loneliness is almost enough to want her to head back home. Hobgoblin’s light embrace is tired, the weight of the day bearing down on his shoulders at last. His black body is drawn out over her back, resting with yellow eyes hidden behind bars of ebony eyelids, tail limping hanging down her side.
She thinks about asking him if he’s awake. He’s faked sleeping before, simply lounging for the sake of it. That feeling is starting to creep it’s way in.
Hobgoblin?
The wait feels like forever, counting each step that she makes as her hips move in a gentle motion, swaying slightly. Seconds tick by, or is it minutes? No birds sing in the night, the owls show no interest in speaking, and the bats seem to have left the face of the earth. What snow that she steps in soft and weak, thin as glass, breaking and crying when she walks upon it’s frail skin.
Hobgoblin doesn’t reply. He doesn’t even stir.
For a moment, the idea of changing her pace to a rougher gait seemed like a good way to wake him, to cure the feeling of being a single soul(again) so that the world wouldn’t seem as dead as it was.
She should've opted on taking a partner, or Zhu. Anyone, even Amara. While the time spent with the winged mare was heavy, hours on end spent on doing nothing more than sleeping near to her body, grazing close enough that if one was to lean to one side, they might br-
Something drags across her side, the sensation of crawling skin and shivers running down her spine almost leaps her into a panic response.
My horn must be a beacon.
She almost bolts, jumping enough that Hobgoblin stirs with nothing more than a whine, lifting his head and checking to see if they were still within the sea of trees.
“Why You wake?”
I didn’t mean to. Something touched me.
“Bush scariest of all. Bush eat You. Bush eat Sia.”
Within his taunts does she finally feel embarrassed, leaning forward with the light of her horn to inspect what had touched her side. He wasn’t wrong. Just a bush without it’s leaves, dying in the cold of Frostfall. Mist escaping from her nostrils glows blue before her before it fades.
“Bush gonna kill You.”
She’d rather be back home than here, with Zhu, with Amara, with all the safety she could manage to find.

OOC: Patrol thread for the DT.
Open to anyone!


"Talk."