She knew only the echo of her own mourning, the madness descending upon her. Africa paused as the voice of their treasured daughter rang through the thin, brisk northern air - but it wasn’t the earnest desperation of the young foal that she heard. He was answering, he was looking for her! Long grey ears searched, swivelled and scanned, pricked perfectly above the flaming poll as it turned left and right with her long raddled face. “Midas!” she screamed again, the voice split and deranged as she answered her mate’s calling excitedly. “Where are you?” Her glazed, flashing creamy eyes caught sight of the figure struggling along slowly behind - but it wasn’t the Ascended, was far too small and insignificant. ‘You can’t keep me from him…’ she hissed silently, convinced that the callous Basin-sadists would be fast on her heels. “You won’t take us! MONSTERS!”

“MIDAS!”

The Zephyr nestled tenderly across her bloodied spine rumbled sadly, helplessly, solemn violet eyes falling back to find the innocent infant as she sought so pointlessly to pull her broken-hearted mother from the pit of this darkest depression. Zahra was alone out here, in an endless winter-wasteland. She was so vulnerable.

The mare leapt forward frantically, knees groaning and shuddering without energy enough to continue - but she would, she must… They would not claim her like they did Sinuhe, all those years ago. The white Unicorn was probably still preserved perfectly on that frigid doorstep, blood as pure and pungent today, as the moment it had been spilled by those merciless fiends. No, she was weak - Africa would not give up so easily. Her chipped hooves sliced viciously through the wet, thick snow as the mission originally intended began to twist most pervertedly in her mind - she would rescue her lover from the jaws of death, they would not take his flight; his life.

“MIDAS!”

‘Why won’t you answer me?!’

Yet another hour trickled by ad then another. Her lungs gasped in futile effort to fuel her ambitious adventure and her battered, shattered body writhed in agony; Africa stalled and plunged headfirst into the freezing slurry below, she was growing ever weaker. The deep wound beneath her barrel was growing soggier the farther she pressed, the scabs and fetid puss was melting away; the hanging wing too, free of those badgering flies at last was growing heavy, the few feathers spared from her self-destructive plucking were saturated. Both injuries harboured toxic bacteria now beyond even the capacity of the cleansing snow’s touch, and it was leaking slowly through her bloodstream - suffocating her crippled heart and every other throbbing organ in her body.

Silas was thrown clear as she fell and he had not realised his own fatigue until that moment. He lifted wearily across his frail, naked legs and looked hopelessly at the flailing mare as she thrashed, struggled and hauled herself at last, again, to a standing position. He watched with lead sinking through his chest as his beloved turned to continue without him, blind, fading…

It was only by will of the whispering wind that the sick mare paused again.

She was too weak to throw her voice again into the sky, could barely summon the strength to lift her head to listen. But there was definitely a voice born upon it. Africa… it seemed to call softly. Lashes fluttered open, lazy, reluctant, and her filmy eyes saw ahead the dimmed, golden silhouette of the God of the Sun. ‘I’m sorry,’ she sighed faintly, before a hacking cough robbed her of breath. ‘…for… never being good… enough.’ Again she coughed, and wavered in place dizzily for a second after. Quiet scarlet began to leak slowly as her flaring nostrils worked ever harder. But it wasn’t the God she had strived so desperately to impress - to please. There was another behind him, smaller than Arah… but so, similar. Her heavy skull tilted as confusion cramped all thought, distorted her reasoning.

“Who… are you?”

Long trembling legs stilled abruptly, and she gazed forward at the blur as it stepped still nearer.

“Midas?”

Africa drew a long shuddering breath. Why had she come here? The cold gnawed at her bones, and she was so horribly wet. Her face craned left and she glanced through one eye towards the blazing, blinding sun - why did it not warm her? Where was the grass? The trees?

Where was Midas?