Age was one of the many things that had come and gone since I’d last parted the veil between myself and Helovia. Everything I had seen and done had been hidden away in an alternate world that was certainly nothing worth repeating. So many days had passed… so many shaded days spent apologizing, drowning, losing myself… I was not foolish enough to think that I did not exist in a cloud of darkness so deep and all-consuming that I would somehow miraculously recover some years later. Yet, I knew that my heart could no longer resist the urge to return and that seemed to be one of the more pressing matters I’d faced of late. To say that I had left in a sudden fit of cowardice could probably be described as completely accurate, but with so many moments of pain, of remembrance, of tender submission between who I was and who I am now, I no longer believe in the fear that forced me from the World’s Edge- my home.

My memory is but an empty room now, filled with hazy faces and ultimately frightening circumstances that I wasn’t sure I’d ever want to call upon again. But I knew that upon facing the line between my restlessness and my desire to taste the briny air of the Edge. However, Helovia provided me another strange discomfort as I braced myself upon its borders, questioning everything that had led me once again to the threshold of all I had once believed to be my downfall. I paced and rumbled like a lion along the outer forest, all the while painfully battling the instinct to run once again to the shadows that had offered me solace and grim company during my days alone. Alone… utterly alone.

It was frightful. It was destruction. My destruction. I knew that I’d strayed from all the things I’d built in order to obtain the future I’d once imagined as glorious and immortal. But of course mortality had shown its face, her smile twisted into a fierce grin that resembled reality. I’d lost the battle against life just as Tamira did so long ago and had she remained with me as a reminder of the many moments I’d wasted worrying over anything and everything that was not my own duty as a Leader to the Edge. Now I was nothing, a mere outcast in the eyes of the many new faces I was sure I’d encounter flourishing within the lands I had once claimed as mine. It was frightening. It was heart-wrenching. My pain was insurmountable.

It took all of the strength I had to lift a single chipped hoof across the line and into the land I knew could bring me fortune or pain. I hesitated there for what felt like an eternity before finally heaving a deep sigh and continuing on, head down. I prayed that I did not come across a single familiar face because I was no longer the King that any of those that could even remember would recall. The life of a rogue was a rough one. My bones had come to strengthen under the barren, dry terrain I’d learned to traverse after my departure. However, unlike Helovia, the wilds knew naught of sustaining me. I ate when I could and sheltered myself from the unknown until I was finally comfortable enough to search for grazing grounds once again. There wasn’t much free time to think and perhaps that’s why I preferred the life of a vagabond. But it was lonely. I missed so many faces and yet feared them and how they would react upon my return. Would they shun me? Would they accept me? Could I even return now that I knew I would return without entitlement, without my land to call my own?

It took a half day to once again find myself at the doorstep of everything I’d ever known. This home, this power over my heart, and most of all, the one thing that drove me from my self-imposed isolation had been tempting me for some time now. It had called to me in my dreams and even in my waking moments. I could recall many images of the regal Mirage and I wondered then if she was still sitting on the throne. However, I was terrified to face her… I was afraid that I’d let her down… Yet, I was afraid of nothing. I had survived so many cold, lonely nights. Surely if there was something in this life that was meant to kill me, it would have been the loneliness I’d experienced in the woods those long nights. I had lived life hadn’t I? I had embraced love, mourned death, suffered loneliness, and now… I had faced my every fear. I had returned.

My voice lifted. It carried with it all the sorrow I’d seen. It burdened the heft of my past kingship, my happiness… it carried all I had ever been upon the many notes that sounded almost song-like. Find me again. Welcome this soul as friend and brother, as I once was. My legs trembled with nerves and though I knew I was still an imposing beast, I was not what I once was at my prime. My ribs told stories of hunger and my hips echoed their tales as they shifted beneath a pelt of dim, dusted, rust. The sheen that had once caught the sunlight upon my neck and rump in the wild, knotted weaving of my youth had greyed with age and though still handsome, I was not the image of a King. I’d learned to wear my cape well- I was but a wanderer once again.

However, I knew that while my body projected my hardships for all to see, my eyes still danced with a fire that I knew would never die. As they surveyed all that I’d left behind, I smiled. It was such a queer feeling that smile… My lips felt as though they were stretched and cracked and yet there was an echo of a feeling that made it all feel natural. I was home. I was HOME!

I was home…