Succumbing to the deep embrace of sleep was as easy as it had been tempting. The boy needed little encouragement to let go of consciousness, and so when warm touch and gentle words assured that it was alright, that his attempts at standing on ceremony and uphold proper etiquette had been sufficient, the child let his head sink down upon the moss. It was a soft and fragrant pillow; he never got to repeat his thank you before a great wave rolled in to carry him off, away to dreamland.

He didn't sleep well, however. As hours slowly seeped by the lithe frame of the boy kept tossing and turning in restless throws, eyes stirring beneath closed lids as though following erratic paths of unknown entities that chased through his mind. Dusty kissers kept mumbling fragmented words, sentences half understandable that were cut off and started as he voiced feeble protests. He never woke up, not really; the sleep was too deep for that, too heavily draped over a strained mind ready to burst with impressions sights and ideas. No, he didn't wake, but not much rest was granted either and by the time the tormented lines faded from around the eyes and sticky lids pried open he was only marginally more rested than before.

For some time Kari simply lay there on the ground, breathing and blinking as reality sank back over him (or did he rise into it?). As he licked the lips the taste of dread died away on the tongue, leaden weight in the gut replaced by a faint churn that was as comforting as it was familiar. Hunger he could deal with. Hunger was, in comparison, a very simple problem with multiple solutions, one of which should remain in some proximity to himself. The dreams were different. How did you combat dreams? How did you fight monsters woven from fear and loneliness, guilt and desperation when every moment that flowed past reduced the chances of him ever seeing his mother again? The pressure only made them worse, as if they fed from the stress and allowed them to multiply.

Heaving the chest in a sigh worthy of a grayed stallion with silver beard and fungi growing along back the colt rolled over to the belly and wobbled up on his feet, as always finding his legs awkwardly long and hard to hands. With the steely neck set low and wings drooping tiredly from the sides he tripped away between the trees, towards the sound of a gurgling stream. The water was cold, clear; it tasted of ice and rock, and as he drank Kari wondered if it had begun to snow somewhere above the heads of the horses that huddled there. The thought was far from encouraging. It had been Orangemoon when he came down here, mid fall with orange leaves and sunny days followed by chilly nights that left the meadows and trees covered in glittering frost. How long had he been down here, how long would it take before he was able to go back outside? Not for the first time he cursed the mares that had stopped him the first time he tried to go after Shadow, thus taking away his drive, his momentum, his... his courage. If only they hadn't stopped him...

With that thought looming over him like a dark cloud the boy finished up his business by the stream and went back to where he had slept, cautiously eying the horses that moved through the forested cavern. Most were strangers, grown stallions of mares of every color shade an pattern imaginable, but as he moved the scrawny colt was looking - as always - for one particular horse. Black, black as the darkness of the pit with eyes that put the dancing heavenly lights of the north to shame, elegant feather wings and a look on her face that, well, he frankly couldn't even imagine. He'd never seen Shadow truly happy or relieved, after all - and seeing him would hardly produce any of these emotions with his reluctant mother.


ooc: sorry for the wait and for the RAMBLE ;__;

I see your true colors