I heard voices rising and falling in the grove. Lovers doing what lovers did—for a brief moment I wanted to snap at them. Usher them away with gashing teeth…instead I laid aside. Closed eyes, blocked them out, slipped into unconsciousness as the world sped on without care or second thought as to whom lay with a heavy heart. I hadn’t expected to see Ktulu this night, (nor any night for that matter.) When the distant patter of feet drew closer, my mind rose from its half-awake state intuitively—one eye opening halfway to peer annoyingly into the misty darkness. It was then that Eytan’s shadowed silhouette lumbered through the dry undergrowth. His dark eyes on me from a distance, black nose scenting the air with strong purpose.

My attention spikes and both golden pools slip apart into a wide gaze. Steady heart skips a beat in my breast before quickening as she came through the trees. Healthy, alive. I couldn’t speak, couldn’t find words for many long moments. She didn’t know I’d awoken—my name trailed her lips as a question. Soft, mildly curious. Smoothly my feet curl themselves and carry this battle weary frame from the bed of moss and pine. Dark neck angles skull toward her, but that is as close as I bent to close the distance.

Bitterness, disappointment—those things keep me from drawing closer to her as I might have wanted. They keep me from falling aside at her feet, begging, longing. A hard lesson was being learnt, and she would forever be its teacher. It seemed that every time I dared to love, only pain and brief ecstasy was the reward. Ktulu had abandoned our daughter to her own demise, the Foothills and me. A child could survive without its mother, but the pain which would wrath later couldn’t be compromised—they would forever be changed, forever be burdened. Just as Cera was. Abandonment, for whatever reason—was still abandonment.

No smile of welcome curls my lips, instead in its place is a dismayed frown. This temptress would continue to hurt my heart even now, “Ktulu, Eytan…i-it is good see ye both is doing well,” there is an unmistakable coldness creeping into my tone—despite how softly they are uttered. Words that aren’t a lie, but neither the truth of a powerful storm which if building behind carefully placed orbs. I voiced what she been wondering, not caring about the silliness that this dark unicorn didn’t want an explanation from me, “I…came for the peace, this place has some old magic still in it,” and it was the only place where I could think of ye and wallow in that grief, I thought silently. “How has ye been?”