KAHLUA

She had participated in war once before, when the Edge had been attacked by the North, a world crashing down upon her home and her new herd, and she had raced to defend them. Unknowingly, at first, but she had participated. And when it was over, and the war was done, when she was bleeding and frightened, she had finally met the first people in Helovia that she would call family. Resplendence had saved her, Kaj had been there (the cruel start to a cold romance story), and Aaron had berated her for being an idiot. Of course, she and Aaron had made up later.

But… that war had been different. Kahlua had not asked the Basin to assault the Edge. She hadn’t even been important. Nobody had asked her to help, she had done it willingly. She had nobody to hate after that war except the unicorns, and even that hate had fizzled- it was a racism born of others’ hatreds, not her own. She hadn’t fallen to the ground and wept, she hadn’t died inside, she hadn’t taken each breath knowing that she was the worst part of the invasion. This time, she didn’t have any of those comforts. She had fallen and wept, she was dead, and she did know that she was the worst. There was no getting around those pains, no saving her from what she had done, no taking back this black part of her history.

She was no Sunshower anymore. She was only a hurricane.

Around her, the grasses sang a song, the most melancholy one they could muster, grass blades dissonant as they rubbed against one another, wind curling back upon itself, whirling and whispering too loudly for comfort. This was the Father Earth’s home, and yet… yet, his magic sang songs of sorrow that she had even come here. She was a disappointment to him, she just knew it. Him, and every other god or person that had ever asked something of her. Even the Lady Moon, who had given her so much, she had failed.

A step, though silent, on the corner of her wolf skin caught her attention through her sobs.

Looking up, blinking through her tears, the queen suddenly found herself mad at Thranduil. No… mad wasn’t even the right word. Angry? Irate? Maybe none of those things. Perhaps she was just deflecting her anger away, throwing it to somebody else, getting it off her chest. Vaguely, it brought to mind a different situation with a different stallion, but the lessons she had learned that day floated out of her head with any rational thought. “Hey!” she practically yelled at him, though he had probably only gone a few steps.

“What makes you think you can just leave?” she followed up with, forcing her body up from the ground, leaving the cloak in the dirt, damp from the tears that had fallen onto it. Her voice was thick with the congestion her emotions had caused. “The whole world’s falling apart and you think you can just walk away?” Incredulous, she stomped towards him, ears laid back across her head. She didn’t even know what she was yelling about. The words didn’t even make any sense, but there she was yelling, the glow of her rock lighting the white parts of her coat as the sun continued its descent over the horizon.

“Or did you just come here to spy on us and then walk away again? Were you even here to help, or are you going to come to me later and tell me how this was all a lie too?” Her chest heaved in and out as she spit her acid words towards him. “What are you even DOING here?” she hissed at him, but the answer was obvious. She was the reason he was here. She had agreed with Kaj and Archibald- war was the answer. She had agreed that they should ask the Basin for help. The Basin had sent Thranduil. Without her, none of this would have taken place. She would not be here, Thranduil would not be here, nobody would be here.

And with that, the queen fell forward, trying to press her wet face into the stallion’s shoulder, to cry onto his withers instead of into the ground, to feel some sort of touch, to know that not everyone hated her, to know they would not run when she approached. She waited for the brush of his fur against her face, for the warmth of his skin to heat her icy soul. She needed him to stand there for her, to stay, to be her rock in this moment, because without him she thought she might just melt into nothingness on the ground. Nevermind that he had deceived her… She had deceived him. He was here now, and she needed him.

the sunshower