Enough. There was only so much pacing each day a soul could do, there was only so much waiting around a mind could take and there was only so much of hating himself he could manage before finally the Nightshade started talking incoherently, mainly consisting of curses, to himself. The sun was too bright, the wind was too quiet and his bones were too restless. The Mender was walking slowly near the mountain pass that lead up to the Steppe, his gaze had an odd kind of wild breakthrough to it, like he was finally nearing the decision he had unknowingly been building up to. Doctor. Time Mender. That’s what they called him without even caring to ask if he was okay with it and hanging it around his neck like he should humbly bow because it was a rare gift. He had accepted it under the clause that he had nowhere else to go and Mauja seemed like a good stallion to serve under, the life presented to him then was a lot better than the one he had just run from. For a time it was the best he’d ever felt, he had purpose and like minded horses, he’d met Kou…

Sir! The voice in his head made him jump and d’Artagnan returned to the present to see Aramis falling in beside him. The shade had been so lost in his thoughts that he had completely forgotten he’d summoned his hell dog who now looked up at him with a slight worried frown upon his canine features. It’s time. Don’t stray too far, you can hunt later. The words came firmly, his low vocals striking a dull tone, not alluding to the new chapter and perhaps the final chapter in his life. Understood! Aramis returned, the hound’s own voice rough edged, like he permanently needed to cough up a rabbit leg.

For now the pair began to walk further into the Basin, feral gazes searching for someone, anyone who would listen before they could finally return to the narrow pass that led out onto the snows with no real objective of coming back. There were things that needed to be done and the more he lingered the more he felt like a relic drifting in the past. Illynx and Deimos were enough to keep the unicorns from straying from their original beliefs, Lena was more than capable of heading up the healing. His position had become redundant, he had become redundant. They may not have said it out loud, but the unicorns of the Aurora Basin didn’t need d’Artagnan anymore and every passing day he became more detached from them. He had become the same useless stallion he had been when Mauja had found him, or maybe he had never changed and that thought hit him like a slap across the face. Whilst others rose he remained the same, they expected him to remain the same, only d’Artagnan was deluding himself into thinking that life was actually okay.

It wasn’t. Not anymore. He could not possibly be a Mender when he was the broken one.