Fog swept down over the sides of the valley as the princess crept in, her movements serpentine and fluid, yet seeping with a darkness unmatched. Her icy blue eyes were cold and narrowed, a dark emotionless veil keeping her face void of any type of expression--not even the neutral yet venomous glare she often held lit her white face. No, in her wake was doom and doom only. She gave the sentinels not but a glance of her attention as she moved past them. They did not budge, knowing her as a member of the army they served. Cloven hooves did not slip on this terrain she knew so well, even as her fog covered the sight of her path below. As this wraith descended on the valley, her fury followed.

Aviya had been with her father and Deimos when she received the news of her mother's demise, and she was here to find some semblance of normativity. With rippling muscles and her crowd of fog, fetlock high, Aviya, the princess of darkness and poison, made her way towards the hot springs. When she reached the rocky outcrop, her fog moved with grey fingers to rest on the warm surface of the water. Her dark magic mixed with the water and danced on its surface. This liquid was impervious to control, and that is why Aviya sought it in this time. It was something stable, yet no one told it how to bend and how to move. It was free, and it was steady, and it was permanent. Lowering her half-crowned head, the smoky colored mare stepped into the warm waters. As the natural serum ran up her limbs she breathed a sigh, an exhale of the discomfort she felt all over her body and inside her soul.

Fully submerged up to the base of her neck, Aviya waded near the edge of the pool. She rested her chin on a rock, closing her icy eyes to cover herself in a blanket of darkness. The sky above her matched, dark and littered with stars, though it danced elegantly with the painting of the aurora borealis. Aviya let another sigh slip past her pale lips, her mind washing over with nothing as the warm water worked on her tense muscles, loosening them as she was pulled into a void of her own thoughts of emptiness.

First, she lost her Tamlin. Now, she lost her Momma Kou.

What else would be stripped away from her? In this moment, a silent tear pushed past her eyelids, and overwhelmingly, she wished for someone familiar to come and comfort her, to wrap her in an embrace. She wished for the handsome stallion, Varath, but she had not seen him in seasons. Perhaps he had been stolen from her, too.