In these tortured hours where dreams and reality mesh into one bland stream of consciousness, Jaydan was not in the least surprised when darkness thickened and birthed a mare into sight. Dead eyes of a sky blue color lifted to watch her move with a feigned interest. They saw but they did not see the lovely hue of settling nightfall that cloaked her perfect body. They looked, but they did not register the graceful arch of her horn or the gentle slope of her wings. She had done nothing yet to suggest she was anything more than a figment of a mad man's mind.

At least, until she spoke.

Although Jaydan's hallucinations often spoke, it was never in this way, in this voice. It was always inside his head, ringed with some tone of his own voice that he never recognized until he'd fallen for the trick. This time though, the moon mare's tones were soft, airy, sympathetic. Nothing like his own internal banter.

She reminded him a bit of Luin.

His gaze cleared as it surged higher to see her better. His hooves shifted on the stone, creating a grinding noise as his crumpled body strove to hold itself together for at least a while long. It's not often the stars speak to you, he supposed he should listen and let his head sit clearly. Her voice fell upon him like a crisp rainfall, washing away old bits of dirt and loose snags of hide, flushing the wickedness from his body if just for a couple breaths, a few heartbeats. It was enough.

His eyes pinched shut. He relished the sensation of being lifted from the depths of a personal hell, if but a moment. In his throat, a murmur wiggled free with some tattered gratitude and apology.

He was sorry. So, so sorry that he was not strong enough.

For a while he continued to sit, a beaten thing, a songless bird. Only when he started to feel the imagined rain of her voice pouring the last bit of relief out of him did he begin to stir. Such steady, capable wings he bore - they trudged against the ground and the wind and lifted him. Flapping loudly against the stone, legs wobbling under him like a newborn, Jaydan tottered to the edge of the volcano. With a final glance back, a stare so thankful it burned his eyes like a comet's tail, Jaydan departed from the moon and the veins.

He fell off the cliff face. It was enjoyable for a bit, the notion of not lifting his wings again, of not kicking his tired muscles once more. Yet he knew he could not, so he flapped and he kicked and he flew and flew and flew away into the dawn.