I have been hiding. I have been sleeping. I have been... broken.

Ever since my boy was lost by my own hooves, his anger a bright star that burst in on itself, blinding me... I haven't been able to live. I haven't been able to die either though. I walk the thin line of both, moving, breathing, being, but only barely. Every time I move, my curtain of black flesh rolls over noticeable bones. Each time I breathe, it rasps. I would eat, but no matter how sweet the grass it falls like ashes upon my tongue, too revolting to consume.

Mostly I just stand with the trees, thinking maybe if I stood there long enough, that I might become one. No luck though, my friends run a strict club in which I have never been given an invitation. Truthfully they've rather shunned me; everything has, including me. I don't deserve to live, but I don't think I know how to die either.

Why not though? Why can't I just go?

As isolated as I've made myself the news of the world travels slowly to my ears. Ears which hardly even hear any more any way, but they heard one thing. They heard murder. They heard death. They heard about him. At least, I think it's him, because he's just a small child that few pay any mind too. Yet the more I heard, the more I listened. I thought I had already lost all my hope, but it sparked fresh, like embers that burned quietly among themselves until a strong enough wind carrier them to tinder. I was afraid to feel this strongly again. I was terrified if it was true, because then it meant he was DEAD. For so long I preferred to just think of him as lost. It made it easier. It helped me... hold on, I guess.

Now though?
Now I'm going mad with the possibility that he has been found, but that he is still l o s t.

Rabid with the uncertainty of it all I broke through the haze of my self destruction, reaching like a shadow through the maze of trees and horses that milled around. I bounced between them all, desperately begging for what they knew, but my tongue felt fat when I used it, throwing spit rather than words more often than not. It had seemed to shrivel up in my isolation, forgetting the language which was so important to function in a society.

I learned enough to lead me to the caves though. Faster than a rabbit running from it's teeth shaped death I scrambled to the tunnels of doom, remembering them all too well for their sanctuary during my most troubled of times. I had hid here, in this fucking fox hole, hiding from my son. My son!

"My son."
The words choked out of my rasping throat, each breath an audible sound as my lungs struggled with the aftereffects of my run.

There he lay, as cold as stone and as rotted as a termite riddled tree. A strange sound warbled in my chest; a prelude of sorrow which stabbed me efficiently. I crumpled like an old cobweb next to him, shaking, moaning, hurting. I flung my head against the ravaged bundle of meat, pulling his corpse into me like death's pillow.

Now there was truly nothing left for me.
I closed my eyes, willing myself to die here, to fall into a dreamless sleep on the bed of my dead child - no finer sleeping arrangement would suit me and my weakness.

So I tried. I tried to sleep, I tried to die. I tried for what seemed like forever, though time was hard to tell down here in the dark and crystal-flecked light. At some point though I realized it wasn't going to work. I was still alive, and he wasn't.

Distraught at this injustice, this unfairness, I became hysterical. Like a wild windstorm I rose back onto my feet, whirling against the caves with various kicks and screeches swaddled in dark hair. "MY BOY!" I keened, the sound shuddering through the caves with such force I trembled. Only in that moment of utter exhaustion, where I had fallen to the very bottom of my being, did a flicker of something stir.

I clutched myself, butt tucked against my ribs, neck curled against my breast. An orange eye slid over to the fallen prince, glossy with damaged sanity, but bright with purpose. "They never last," she muttered to no one, not even herself. A wet tongue licked dry lips, nervous, but excited. "They never last because I stop. I stop before they take it all. Not this time, not this time. My boy...my boy..."

Madly I set myself to the task of resurrection. It was nothing new, though like the rest of me it hadn't been used in a long time. Part of me feared my lack of energy to complete the task, but most of me didn't bother to think that much about it. I only knew I had to, I had to try, I had to succeed.

I am still alive because he is not, but I can make that change.

Little by little my magic poured over the aged corpse of the colt. I pulled him up on his feet, and with each exhale, each heart beat, each blink, I renewed him. His flesh stitched itself back together, spatter pulled from the walls and the dirt where it had begun to decompose. His eyes rolled dead inside his skull, as all my reconstructed skeletons always had, but I kept working. I was not content just to have his bones dance. I was not satisfied with merely mending muscles. I would not rest with only his heart pumping, his lungs pulling, his eyes twitching.

I wanted all of him back, alive.

I stumbled, staggered, and finally fell, but he stood. He stood, blood dripping from his mouth and his nose as the organ in his chest thumped back into an irregular beat before settling into rhythm. He snorted, froth and pus spraying from his nares, dribbling out his eyes, but with each sneeze it cleared and he breathed fresh.

I smiled, seeing him for the last time as my vision blurred. I felt, tired, like I was floating on the ground. I didn't stop though, I kept pouring myself out, even when it became hard to bring air in, even when I couldn't sense anything. I gripped my magic and thrust it at him, finishing with one single gasp as my body perished and his revived, the light flickering back on in his eyes.

He was empty, but I filled him back up.
I lived for something, just in time to die.

My son.

Worn out places, worn out faces
No expression, no expression
No tomorrow, no tomorrow
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