A hole had ripped itself into the heart of the young thing, and he had been left with mere shreds of an organ too important to be lost. The herd meeting had been little distraction, though his frailty had been apparent when Hector and Megaera had come to him, their sides warm and supporting him. Ready for him to fall against them, ready for the weight of his agony. They had clasped him in their love, and Cera had shook beneath it, feeling like a tiny firefly had become his lighthouse of guiding light in the middle of a storm at sea that he'd been prepared to jump overboard into. Fully prepared to lose himself, to let his fire dim and spark and die all at once.

Nobody really understood the magnitude of Cera's loss. Even the Gods mocked his emotions, his experiences. Things they could see with such clarity in their omnipresence. How could he believe they truly cared when they gazed upon him, and instead of sympathy, instead of relief, they offered instead words like selfish, and useless? His faith, once a defining trait that kept his steps true and heart beating against the weight of the world that so sought to crush him, had begun to crumble into nothingness. Leaving him absent, empty. Lacking. A black hole. No real reason to continue on, and yet he did so doggedly.

There was only one real border to patrol, but he walked it ceaselessly. Digging furrows with the dragging of his toes, as long as the length of the broken shoreline. Hours spent listlessly walking, trying to make sense of his grief, his purpose or the lack thereof. Ilaria tried to urge him into seeking out Gaucho, remembering how open their hearts had been to one another beside the flames of the Diviner what seemed like years ago. But Gaucho had been the killer, in some way. And Cera still wondered if Gaucho, too, thought he had not done enough when it came to decoding the clues. Had he not done enough, again? Had the Gods been right, was he truly useless?

It was a broken sort of stare that fell on the moonpainted boy at the borders.

A dished face turned slowly to fall upon the youth, staring for a few long moments before striding out across the sands to meet him. He had been at his brother's funeral, for lack of a proper word for the grief Cera had experienced mere days ago. Had he set out for the Throat on Cera's tail, that day? Or had he lingered, unsure? Cera recalled him only in flashes and glances, the back of the pack. Wings drug carelessly against the sand, even as his flight feathers frayed and chunks fell away into the past, left behind. A void of darkness consumed Cera's eyes, and they centered on Mesec as if inviting him in.

"My name is Cera. What is it you seek?" A quiet, but firm question. Though he did not truly desire to be there, to deal with the newcomer, he supposed it was his duty to do so.