Deep blues and opaque blacks washed across the thawing ground at my feet like colorless waves made of the midnight oil. The moon’s face was hidden behind a thin veil of clouds and her light drifted down to the earth in weak shafts of white lace. The quiet was heavy and weighed greatly on my heart as I stood waiting for words in the night that I feared would never come. So when they did, I was struck with shock and grief so deep that I failed to find response. She’d come… Evangeline had come. Those emerald eyes still shone through the shadows of the night as she emerged from the darkness with Tallis perched atop her rump in unusual fashion. “I’m here,” I choked out hesitantly. I felt weak from sleep and anxiety but above all else, I was devastated that the day had finally come. The Steppe had fulfilled its mission to rob me of the one thing that had once bound me to my own humility. Nothing was left but a growing sense of detachment that I was unsure if I would ever recover from. My world had come spiraling down around me as it had so many times before, but this time the pain was unfeeling. I had nothing left to give.

As if in slow motion, I watched as the glint of moonlight in Eva’s eyes fell down, down, down to the pieces of my body I’d shed. It was a queer sensation to see the barren bones scattered upon the dirty snow all alone. They were cracked and browned in places, as they had been exposed to the elements over the course of a few weeks. I couldn’t find anything to say that would justify what Evangeline now saw lying before her so I ignored the onslaught of emotion in favor of drawing her close. “Eva,” I murmured. “Illness has taken them… ” I finished quietly. I feared that my very life would be stolen from beneath my own nose and without anyone else, no one else to care about me or my wellbeing, I had turned to Evangeline seeking security.

With slow, tentative steps I approached the mare and her reptilian guard. I sought to feel her warmth against my skin and within my soul. She possessed a fire strong enough to thaw my heart of ice… I was no longer a young stallion and my legacy had ended all too abruptly but that didn’t mean that my life stopped too. I had released my memories to the Edge so that she might harbor them and keep them alive, but I did not want to remember anymore. I wanted to live.

“I was attacked in the Steppe, but it was not like anything I’ve witnessed before… It was so surreal Eva. It was a dark magic, whatever it was. Not long after, my wings became infected,” I lamented. The words didn’t seem real as they found their way to my tongue. But the images were too vivid as they reeled quickly from one moment to another across the empty plains of my mind. “I didn’t think it would lead to this… I’m not sure how to feel,” I added weakly. Quietly, I invited the mare closer in hopes that she would respond as positively as I hoped. Evangeline was the only soul I’d learned to trust fully since Tamira’s death and I hoped that she remained as such.