The world was dark. Hearts were dark. It was changing, and he was not truly ready.

The general stood tall on the mound of earth beneath him, his mammoth hooves pressed into the snow with ease. Harsh wind brushed across his body and he wondered if the light would ever return. Archibald was born and raised in darkness; he was used to the night and the evil that lurked within. Once upon a time, he was the evil. Part of him still was the evil; part of him had moved beyond—if one looked at it as so. He had killed his mother, his brother, and had taken his family on a new path. He had mated with his first and last mare—Circe—and they were devastated by the monstrous blow of losing their child, their beautiful daughter. Archibald still dreamed, and forever would, how the memory of the small but solid foal felt, cold and limp, at his side, curled under his powerful neck. If he were a different stallion, with less of a darkness grasping him, he may have shed a tear for the loss. Circe had cried. He watched dreadfully, calling his brothers to side them in the tragedy. Knox and Evers—proving to be more loyal to him than his own twin—were the first to come with Loretta’s beck and call. Archibald would treasure, protect, and reward them when the time came.

For now, he just needed a glimpse of the light. The return of the moon had given him a morsel of hope for the return of the others, but he still yearned for the way that the sunlight reflected off of the pool in the Foothill’s heart; still yearned for the power he felt flow through his veins by the gift of the Earth God. Archibald reminded himself that, even without the gift, he was still the Dauntless—a warlord, a titan among ants.

Turning on his hind, slowly and begrudgingly, the stallion moved inwards towards the heart of his herdland. The Foothills had been quiet and his patrols had been almost uneventful in each turn of his head. Through the snow, Archibald let his head hang comfortably level with his spine, and Loretta trotted beside him faithfully. Ophelia’s call hit his ears like piercing wind, and his pace quickened intently. Surveying the group that settled—Ktulu, Osiris, Phaedra, Murdock—Archibald stopped all-too-close to the one he was most pulled towards, Circe. The mammoth lowered his muzzle to gently touch her withers, and hoped she would accept the gesture. Lifting his eyes to lock gaze at the turning chieftess, Archibald merely nodded towards her. He had no say in her decisions, no pull for her to stay. The Dauntless had predicted such a turn of events when the sisters had met and argued over the Basin contract. Archibald could not say he was disappointed in Ophelia, nor could he say that he understood and respected her decisions; all he could do was be the guarding warrior he had been since the birth of their, albeit different, sort of friendship.