Oblivion pooled around her like stewing vultures before the feed. Africa was a pitiful sight to behold, certainly not the gloriously effervescent, young-hearted creature known during yesteryear. The haggard creature standing there so decrepit in the north-snow, remembered nothing of the lighter moments in her life; like when she had played with the young rummy-nosed colt called Voodoo, fleeing molten armies through twisting labyrinth caves beneath the deep forest; blushed when even a tiny moment’s notice had been given to her by a certain gilt General. Times when she had gathered mushrooms through dingy, dark woodlands, outwitted raging Basilisks and taken emerald clovers prisoner. No, only darkness plagued her mind now, blackened her soul like the vast ocean depths - and she was drowning, without the will it seemed, even to thrash.

Thranduil… the wind whispered hauntingly, but the word struck no chord in her sinking heart; bore no weight amid the chaotic tangle of recent events.

Though her ears slunk heavily forward, drawn from the frothing fire above, there was no acknowledgement in the vacant stare as it held weakly the golden figure in its sight. It was a sound somehow familiar, so strange… surely she’d heard the soft nature of that voice before. Crazed, unfocused vision of her daughter slipping into thick undergrowth flooded her mind suddenly, and that voice - there - warmed her through like the sung lullaby of a tender mother’s tongue.

Africa…

The stench of war lay thick upon the breeze, steaming bodies, aliens, descending upon the hidden sanctuary en masse. Booming demands, frightened cries, thundering hooves, colliding flesh, gnashing teeth, roaring, crying, agony, fear, confusion…

Golden eyes rolled feverishly as the mare’s long dappled skull abruptly swung beneath flailing forelock and writhing fire, in a vain bid to be rid of the echo of the invasion - the rising terror - as it sought wickedly to consume her. She rocked precariously across feeble limbs as the weight of her helpless frame followed in sequence, and the buffeting wind dragged viciously at the dangling, broken wing like a wolf, devouring it’s prey. Pain resonated through her core - but it was all more of the same - torment which had become in these last weeks, all too normal for the wretched Starry-Eyed.

The glitter of vivid sand tempted her back again from the brink, and she found herself trained beneath another horse’s gaze. Both suddenly stunned and awakened (if only momentarily), thick black lashes narrowed suspiciously and Africa’s pinched face bounced to meet him. “Who are you…?” she probed curtly, impatiently, but only the muffled groan of her blood-starved lungs passed by her grimacing lips. As the eyes diverted unexpectedly, below the visible pitch of putrid, muddy hips her gut seemed to twist horrendously; again red-raw whites flashed as her head careered away, tossing left and then right, as though that mad sea she were lost in had risen into a lashing fury. The streak of a moving silhouette, dark against the crisp snow, snagged her thoughts for barely a second - the small horse, a deer had slipped by.

She was alone…

‘Mid…’

But the wind was calling again. Barely…

Africa…

A golden figure loomed before her engulfed in blinding sunlight, and the mare dipped her burning eyes hesitantly beneath the shadow of her own form. Strange musk clouds the distance between, though she has not the energy to investigate it - not the will. He spoke then, and the voice held not the chilling, ghostly quality of before. Africa glanced jadedly towards him and her bent neck uncoiled by half. “He?” she queried vaguely, passing her bewildered gaze into the corridor of memories stored beneath his own. She found many things there, tales of bitterness and resentment, lust and loathing… wickedness… She coughed roughly, hoarsely and for a moment severed the connection - but as sour crimson spilt across her lips, pooled within sputtering nostrils, she found a picture that stirred her heart to race. “He is here!” she sang suddenly, loudly, almost folding forward across trembling knees.

There, within the shimmering bronze of the stranger’s eyes was Midas the Ascended, the gilt - the Gallant. “Oh… love…” she mumbled ignorantly, eyes glazing as a bitterly cold shiver clawed through her chest… “No… n…” the broken creature hacked violently after, rocking back across hocks that wished her burden no longer. “Come back!” she choked, sinking backwards into the open jaws of her icy grave - back Africa was not quite lost.

She drew an agonising, wheezing breath and desperately hurled her bulk forward, the tortured mare searched through the growing dim for her mate. Only the sunlit stallion remained however, and she struck out angrily (uncharacteristically) to the front with a chipped, filthy fore-hoof. “No!” she seethed as tears simmered behind her eyes; bloody spittle sprayed as her nose swung ahead of the lead weight of her skull. Africa swayed dangerously above her weary legs but did not for the moment fall.. “What’d you do… Where… is he…” The snarl in her voice was not her own, it was not born from the gentle-nature inherited by her mother, nearly seven years before - it leaked from the gaping wounds of her taunted and harried heart, her fractured mind. Teeth flashed, but just as abruptly as her temper had flared, it faded, and the ill creature moaned as a wave of light-headedness distracted her.

“Who’re you…”

Confusedly she looked towards him, the dark, looming shadow before her. For a moment his eyes caught the cascading light and she was stirred by another secret nestled in their midst.

There were many hidden throughout a rolling, wooded region; a thick looking draft - midnight coated and tall - who towered beside. That beast bellowed through the tranquil silence, and a softer voice followed, brilliantly practiced, but unfamiliar all the same. Africa…

She was growing weary as the wind tested ceaselessly, dying - every organ concealed beneath the tattered tapestry of grey was pulsing desperately. A losing battle. She watched on though, with fading hope, as the stranger turned towards the a vast pine wall towards his rear - the Sunshower, the Queen, she was lingering in ribbed shadow. Africa saw too though, a golden coat, above which rested unmistakable golden dipped wings.

Lashes closed helplessly against that image, and she returned with a jerk to her morbid reality. “I don’t understand… Zahra? Where is… Zahra?” she hummed loosely, a sickly grin curling through quivering smoky lips. Still her eyes remained closed, and the once Sultana swerved perilously left towards the snow.

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:: [Magic: LightxTime (U) | Can look through another’s eyes into their mind and travel back in time to experience their memories as well as alter them by planting new memories.
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