The queen's body was healed, but not her heart. It was like a darkness had invaded her chest and was chocking her- compressing her lungs, squeezing her heart and leaving her gasping for her very life. Aly and Res had tried to reassure her that it was ok, that she had only been defending her home and her family, but Kahlua could not get over her newest nightmare. It had only been a couple days, but already Kahlua knew that this nightmare would not disappear so soon. She had gone to sleep only to be woken screaming for the last few nights. And every time she closed her eyes, the queen was left with images of flying snakes and burning wings.

She was exhausted and nothing seemed to help.

Aimlessly, the painted girl wandered through the Edge and wondered what to do. She felt that the best thing for her family would be for her to leave, to step over the shattered remains of her glass wall (so closely resembling the shattered remains of her glass heart) and never return. After all, could a murderess really lead the peaceful group of horses that lived in the Qian? The painted queen did not think so, but she was also a coward and leaving was not so easy as just thinking it. To leave them... to leave them would be to leave everything she had come to know and love in this past year and a half. To leave them would be like watching her family burn again.

Besides, if she left and had to go somewhere else, who would take in a murderess?

So the queen just wandered, head low, eyes downcast, trying to make herself as small as she could. She stayed away form the cliff edges, which reminded her too much of the battle and of Antheia's death some seasons past. She shied away from the copse she called her own, trying to do anything to change up her routine. But maybe... She sighed. She wanted to be around others but did not want to taint them with her evil. Still, the more she wandered, the more one name kept coming back to her head... “Evangeline?” The call was quiet. She dare not attract too much attention to herself. Who knew which of her herd members hated her now. Perhaps it was even Eva. The queen suddenly shuddered to think what she had called upon herself, but it was too late.

@[Evangeline]