The world was ending. Really, truly, this time. This wasn't like the time when the sun tried to burn all the lands to a crisp, or when the gods disappeared and left Helovia in darkness for half a year, or even when strange lookalikes began to roam the regions. The terror that washed throughout the landscape overtook the fear of facing up against a boggart, or an earth giant, or even the horrible empty silence that time when the bond between him and Fajira was blocked... Frankly, this was freaky and weird and Lace wanted absolutely nothing to do with it, and it only got worse by knowing that he had nowhere to run.
Escaping the Edge had taken its toll. Exhausted after running for his life, Lace found himself littered with cuts, scrapes and bruises after facing off against whipping branches, thorn bushes, rocks and roots and all manner of malicious elements of nature. He had been lucky enough to avoid the ravenous mists that had devoured everything in its path (at least he thought so, but the feeling of being followed and watched had yet to go away) but the blind panic had left him lost and confused. Somewhere along the line he had lost track of Fajira too - their minds were still connected and she seemed to be okay, he just missed having her familiar weight over the shoulders.
Overall it was a fairly miserable stallion that padded along through a lightly wooded area, somewhere between the Secret Grove and the Heart - he wasn't sure himself where exactly he had ended up, though considering the speed and general direction of the sun it had somewhere much further south than he had intended. A light limp on a foreleg served as a reminder of how stupid it was to loose his head in the forest - a sharp rock had done a number on the fetlock, and while the cut wasn't deep or serious it was annoying - just as annoying as the sniffle, and the headache, and...
Lace took a deep breath and forced himself to exhale slowly as he came to halt under a gold-leafed birch. In the light of the setting sun the autumn-dressed foliage burned bright as fire - it seemed beautiful at first, almost enough to make him relax. The more he looked though the more the color seemed to hold a tinge of red, an unsettling, stark hue not unlike the glistening, glowing orbs in the midst of the writhing darkness that had pursued him...
With a shudder the grullo closed his eyes and pressed his forehead against the silvery trunk, welcoming the sensation of something solid against the skin. It was comforting, trees always seemed to be; he had grown accustomed to their company over the years, and even more so these past two cycles when unexpected abilities had given him power over them. Controlling the wood, bending branches and making sap flow to stretch, bend, increase and develop subtle shapes and forms to serve his purposes... He enjoyed this ability far more than the ultimately destructive nature of the fire he possessed, and in times like these when the world around became dangerous and life all the more precious, it was almost meditative to make use of it.
Lace was hardly aware of it himself as he began to weave roots and branches of the surrounding trees, gently stretching and pulling and weaving them into a protective wall around himself, taller than he could rear and encircling an area large enough for himself to walk around in. Leaving only an entrance large enough for one horse to pass through at a time and plenty of holes to allow for visage around the area, the stallion found himself feeling strangely secure as he finished, as if he had somehow managed to save himself. It was all bogus of course. If anything like the mists that had taken over the Edge came this way he would likely have trapped himself rather than protected against it, but at the very least he wouldn't have to be on the guard for predators. And with a small spark of fire set to a scraped up pile of branches, leaves and fallen logs, the flickering of the fire as darkness fell almost made him feel like home.
Almost...
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