A deep silence seemed to settle all around after the last of the Gallant’s soft, reassuring baritone vocals dimmed away to nothing. Depthless pools of gold returned at last from their shadowy host (she had followed for a short time), and her milkier gaze welcomed their touch with rising warmth and benevolence – that which for a long time had been drowned out by an ever increasing volume of fear and vacillation. Thick black lashes bowed decorously, half across her eyes and she smiled quietly as she reflected thoughtfully on times long past.

Faces began to whirl around them, a blur of spinning light and colour, and for a split second her eyes danced to view them. They moved fast and were barely recognizable, but as Africa glanced curiously back to discover her friend’s reaction, they began to slow; Midas seemed not to notice, his expression had not changed at all. Eyes pulled back tentatively to the wall, to a hazy face that looked all too familiar – young though, unscathed and jovial, with sparkling sandy eyes that beckoned for her mischievously. The image was frosty, inconsistent – it had existed in this world such a long ago. She couldn’t help but smile though as the girl’s lithe, adolescent frame materialised beneath; legs danced as though roused by a tune searching ears could not find. Wings were flared superbly, portraying childlike confidence, fully feathered and eager to feel the rush of flight; but another slipped between old pines to join her.

Midas! Africa called noiselessly out in the dream, forgetting that he lay truly beneath while the grip of Frostfall tightened around the world outside.

He looked younger, vivacious. Muscles rippled beneath a radiant, glossy coat of black and white as strapping legs carried him forward; Fina sat like a regal flame upon him, but neither Pegasus nor Phoenix swayed their focus from the dapple-grey girl. She couldn’t quite grasp the conversation which followed – she could hear nothing at all actually (maybe it was too old) – but the gangly, social awkwardness radiating from the girl as she bumbled in the humbling shadow of the couple was blatantly obvious. Africa couldn’t help but smile fondly as she remembered their first meeting and watching it now from an entirely new perspective (she was older, tainted and afflicted) renewed a small sense of that giddy fascination, attraction. It seemed his care for her had never wavered much...

The picture began to fuzz, to dissolve, but she strained defiantly, stubbornly, and it held firm around her.

They travelled south from the Threshold together to Dragon’s Throat, the frivolous girl and her valiant guardian, and though no feeling of the aridity overwhelmed her this time, the one-winged recalled quickly the wall of overbearing heat they had collided with during the final leg of that journey. She shuddered visibly in the cell as scrawny body braced and eyes fastened closed. The oasis’s bright, lush foliage soon surrounded them - sunlight flooded down, and mare and stallion spoke on for a time, but the memory began to waver once more and quickly it disintegrated altogether.

She might have loved to linger in that moment forever, so young and naive, but as darkness grew again between the soft warmth of flickering firelight, another face had appeared and it drew nothing of the smile which had been.

Star glitter filled the night sky, and her sooty, whiskered chin lifted in awe to behold it. Even the sliver-moon paled in comparison. Africa drew a short breath, unsure what the dream represented at first (was it Silas?), though she was curious nonetheless. In time, the lonely figure of a travelling stallion appeared upon a ridge; wings drooped dismally to either side of his trim waist, and head slunk forward as though he had not the strength in his spine any longer to bear its weight – she knew the feeling. He paused beneath a small rock ledge, and she could see his lips curl with speech, a sorrow in his eyes that touched her empathetic heart. Never had she seen Midas so glum, flat; it seemed all the worse after the bright being only moment's before. This time there seemed to be sound, born as though wind itself; it was barely a murmur, ghostly. It was a prayer, melancholic, moving. Suddenly though he was distracted and his nape twisted beneath familiar tendrils of silken black, haunting gaze locked upon the feeble frame of a colt and her gaze narrowed too; golden and white he was, juvenile wings dipped in the richest of caramels.

Africa did not recognise her desert brother, the young Diviner. He seemed so lively, eager – certainly not the reserved, though sensibly elegant stallion she considered him to be in the present.

The pair spoke for some time, and the young Gallant’s face seemed to lighten.

Again though the memory began to shimmer and flake prematurely and Africa’s jaded eyes widened in vain effort to watch on regardless. Her mind grew weary also though; could no longer focus enough to maintain. As all faded into nothing, she sank back into the cavern where he waited still upon the moist earth, yawning deeply. Weary eyes fell toward the stallion, glistening thoughtfully and fondly, and knees buckled as she reached his side. “How much longer should we wait?” she pondered softly, vaguely, and yawned again as her weight settled with barely a breath’s space between. She waited long enough for his reply before asking, “would you tell me a story,? From before all this darkness – from when things were brighter?” She wanted to ask about the golden foal who had brought him to life that night, to rouse that same smile now which had blossomed amid his despair.