The Gallant’s warm musty breath engulfed her suddenly; a touch offered, that was given all too frequently by herself, but felt upon receipt, as alien as the swirling darkness owning their frail world. Few ever returned to Africa that same gentle merciful empathy she gave so selflessly, so freely, and the taut wetted skin beneath his bump prickled wildly. The guilt-stricken mare sighed sombrely, pastel eyes burying themselves tiredly into the luminescent beauty of the room adjacent to where she stood hunched beneath the unravelling drama of her soap-opera life; she had never worked it towards such, not deliberately. Midas motioned with a gentle voice, suggesting reasonably that repercussions were as individual choices made, and the shuddering mare couldn’t help but nod- understanding demurely; humiliated all the while by those mistakes tarnishing her past.

Trembling lips were sent to retrieve another quill from its sleek, glossy bed without room for thought. The wing lifted obligingly from where it lay nestled in warmth against the right span of her clothed, dappled ribcage, the long black flight feathers along its lavish rim splayed in waiting. She sought none in particular and glassy, pained eyes roved between the bristling plumage blindly; leaving the art of selection to blunt, marble-white teeth. They fell casually upon their prey and beneath a tightening maw, pulled away a feather darker than the face of a summer storm in body- yet so intricately frosted along the rounded tip with contrasting snow-white. The jaw slackened and the wasted plume twirled to the wayside; abandoned, unseen and unfelt by its troubled keeper.

Midas went on to describe all too candidly how much more unkind their great world was, than it was perceived to be by the cool minds of their clan; of perhaps the vast majority lingering now, around them, she thought additionally to herself. The Endless Night though, and now this horrific sickness which had become ‘Helovia’s Darkest Hour’, had each tested by now, the populations confidence; though Africa still sought all solace by the bosom of the Gods and her faith swelled hopefully in their higher power. The convulsions; the wracking sobs which had overwhelmed her weeping core eased, and in their place flooded a new enormous fatigue. She figured that the unjust nature of life could easily be implied to the gold-wielding stallion also- had not he just exposed to her grief caused by the cruelty of fate? “Yes...” she agreed with a soft tone, unwilling to reignite his own furore for the sake of her own meagre pity.

Then, with another breath drawn and a mind less in tatters than how it had begun the last time (that was not to say the memory hurt any less), Africa continued…

“I was turned over by the black Unicorn stallion to be the prisoner of the bay. She broke my wings, trapping me in the Basin, and left me more or less to wallow in the gravity of my mistake.” Maybe that long time forced upon the dappled prisoner to dwell, had been the greatest cause of her self-loathing; the weight of inescapable introspection layering corrosive guilt and grief across a gentle, breaking heart. She shrugged literally at the fleeting thought, unsure.

“Do you remember the black and white stallion that you fought only days after we’d first met?” Africa paused then, glazed gaze too tired to find any reaction betrayed by his ebony expression; the haunting gold, depthless gaze within it. After minutes she continued, “He was there; was one of them.” Apparently she had not foreseen his affiliation before that fateful time- his presence in that hell-hole had come as quite a shock. “The prize that he’d sought that day in the cliffs above the Foothills was claimed thrice over- he is the one who took my wing from me. What a trophy when all he had wanted to begin with was one lousy feather.” A scoff breezed between frowning lips, and she shook away the heavy stallion’s arrogant face from her mind. The tears had all but dried from her raw, reddened eyes; soggy cheeks all that remained of the emotion unleashed so pathetically.

Silas had folded comfortingly his small feathered body to warm his beloved as she’d spilt the truth of her history to the pleasant black and white stallion; unavoidably he too had been inundated by all those memories as they had tumbled back to the forefront of her mind, and held a much firmer understanding now- he thought, of why she was so shy, cautious and insecure; why she had sought more and more the embrace of solitude through recent months. But he marvelled too at the still generous nature of her soul and that kindness that seemed relentlessly to exude, regardless of pain. He crooned delicately, softly, upon her silk-shroud spine with breast-feathers parted to wrap against her.

“I didn’t mean to…” the mild note of her voice cracked, “You have so much pain of your own. I’m sorry.” Africa felt so bitterly selfish and violently unconfident, but mustering together the relics of her tattered courage she lifted her the lead-weight of her chiselled, ashen face, so that a rueful glance might sink beneath the safety of a gaze which had always proffered inspiration.

Africa