The wind’s melancholy moan seemed only to amplify the mournful rhythm resonating with the shudder of her hopeless, withering pulse. A strangling grip upon her mind seemed to tighten, strengthen, suffocating all thought within and so too the very blood from her brain as it throbbed beneath, surging roaring pain. In the same moment, her heart seemed to balloon, to swell agonizingly, and then burst finally beneath the soft tissue of her breast – and then nothing… Horrifying stillness, eerie silence – a chilling sombreness rose within the tattered dapple canvas as though Africa’s conscience had fallen both mute and deaf all at once. She felt heavy, like she was sinking, falling, plunging into the hellish pits of the earth; but as her tear-stained eyes jerked into the light once again she found the stranger still standing before her, and they closed softly.
 
Dying… dead… dying… dead… her erratic heartbeat seemed to chant.
 
“Silas…” Africa cried out in thought, desolately, but she knew that her beloved Zephyr was no longer there; that their joined souls had been severed. The bond which had tethered her for so long to the realm of reality was no longer, and the grief was immeasurable as she lay dying without him, sprawled across the cold, unforgiving tundra snow. Boiling tears spewed like molten lava from a seething volcano as her heavy black lashes flinched apart; but there was no anger riling the mare’s unravelling emotion now. The fallen mare sobbed pitifully painfully against the cold truth of this bed. There would be no salvation this day.
 
No knight in shining armour.
 
All the while, there seemed born upon the wind a cry so delicate and so pure, rising through the heavens, across the snow-slick plane and all about her like white, twirling cloud; dainty, brittle.
 
Sudden warmth sliding beneath her cheek moved her lungs startle – to inhale – and broad nostrils wheezed desperately as her chin tried to lift. The voice of the stallion swam about her limp ears as though descending through a dream, and beside it hummed a more familiar tune. It was Zahra, their child; her beloved babe. “Zahra…” She rattled tiredly and weakly, one golden eye rising to find the shimmering reflection of herself. “There is so much you need to see…” she wanted so desperately to tell the young filly, but the energy to do so she had not. Lashes sealed as reluctant muscles supporting the crane of her neck began to tremble frantically, and the weight of her flame-trimmed skull sank wilfully back into the bony limbs of the girl.
 
She sighed grimly, straining to restore oxygen as her body sank further into the grip of this sad fate.
 
How Africa would have loved then to slip away into the beckoning world of fond dreams.
 
Bulging eyes reopened, weighty lids forced apart by the whimper of her brood. “Dear… don’t cry.” she groaned, rocking her chin again so that she might find the red-stained gaze of the foal. As mother and child, gold upon gold, then collided, the broken mare descended into the small sacred treasure-vault of her tiny daughter’s memories. One after the other, she placed images and visions of times long now passed – of a bitterly cold basin, filled with creatures of a tendency much the same. Faces from which she had been long shielded became the forefront, fresh and firm; vicious, battering, thieving monsters (black and white, a mixture of both) the mare spared no truth for her innocent babe. Thoughts that were still raw within her own mind, glinting scars so thin – it took so little to reopen their aching wound.
 
Antlers and siren eyes accompany next a cunning mind and double edged tongue; more recent times, pain not let yet to fade. She was a monster as brutal as she was beautiful, and Africa filled her child’s head with bitter bias – so too the beast and his tribe who had accompanied her. He was tall and black, built more like a mountain than anything living and he had the cold core to match. Like stones scattering into a grand avalanche he had lead them to beat without mercy those dwelling in peace upon the Earth’s tranquil land. Cruel and hard were his disciples – another black and white, the stark opposite of the Sunshower her name otherwise impressed – and a steed of milk and fawn in their company, each of who were to be met with utter caution.
 
Memory of soured relationships were purged, any which held merit – bloody and bitter, the lost and the living – all which had at some point been discovered. There were siblings who had forsaken love so forthcoming; nameless faces who were framed in black; for they had all more or less punctured the heart of their father with callous swords of indifference, hate or resentment. There was a crimson tinged banshee whose face appeared too beside the beastly black hulk and many more who came to mind the deeper the dying mare delved. Features she delivered, because names meant little in this untrustworthy world; where the gods turned on each other and destroyed the lives of their followers so ungracefully. One ear, antlers and tribal markings, a ghoulish roan…
 
There were fond times too, faces that brought warmth and ignited weak passion as they passed – rummy-nosed adventures, clover prisoners, and missions through the dank underworlds, where glowing creatures were the light. There was an obnoxious mare who’s beliefs were as inspiring as the were wild, and many others who had been sunlight in an existence marred and black. The Starry-Eyed offered them all….
 
Any worldly lesson she could find there, lining the chaos of her past.
 
But there would be no time to finish and another voice sliced clean through the suffering creature’s concentration – it was the voice of hell itself.
 
Already light and flimsy, Africa’s breath snagged in her throat as foreboding flooded her maimed core. “No…” she gulped, hard, pulling her lethargic eyes from the foal. “No…” He was the greatest source of her pain in this life, a merciless animal and the taker of both flight and freedom; and now he was there, looming like a manifest cloud of evil above them. His ravenous, morbid gaze slipped from the innocent child she nestled against and a fear struck her as the stallion’s thick head sauntered nearer. “Run!” Her mind screamed in vain as the tightness in her chest locked out all breath. Her expression hid none of the terror ignited, the anguish engulfed her and every inch of soggy, puddle-grey coat began the shake.
 
With a jolt, the mare’s head slumped against the cold wet surface of the tundra – the frightened filly was stumbling from his reach. Rolling eyes searched for the stallion who had stayed so near, though with each feverish beat of the strained organ in her chest, the darkness clawed closer. “Mons-ter…” she murmured brokenly as his dense shadow fell before the bright, distant sun, and a perverted halo beamed around him; forced her eyes to shut. Guilt swarmed through her mind, pain for the so desperately loved child she and the Gallant had crafted so passionately. It was too late now.
 
“ZAHRA!”
 
Defying the chains of gravity pressed down upon her, Africa heaved from the ground and perched awkwardly upon quaking, splayed forelegs long enough to find the filly hesitating, turned half around. The pallid fox-creature stood snarling between Zahra’s long, thin legs but the mare had not the time to waste upon it; her eyes sought frantically the girl’s, the distress pooling within them. Again she delved into their midst, threading together a new web of lies – brilliant memories to blanket those barely moments ago installed. The story of undying love, of passion and commitment; a mother and father locked in a lifeless, eternal embrace, sheltered deep below the Earth’s mountain below golden laden walls. There was no hardship in this tale, nor pain or horror, and the devoted mother made certain to blur her own face throughout it.
 
The cold wind battered her worn frame and as Africa’s balance began to skew, their connection failed – the foal turned to run, and she did not look back.

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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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