And so she came back to where it had all started. The woods were as constant as the sun in its rising, the moon in its phases. Her knees quaked to return to the land, and Rathunax cooed soft sounds of worry into her ears. He was not born when she had first entered Helovia, but she let the memory overcome her, let him see and gaze upon the broken, fragile doll she'd once been. Still as tiny as she ever was, ever more so, a mere weanling struggling through snow drifts taller than she. And blood. Bleeding. Pain across her side, a lance, a dagger of fire. Oh god, all the red. Like a cruel ironic mockery of her flowers, blooming in the snow around her, hot and fresh from her body like a waiting meal for the wolves. She remembered her scarred, blackened knees, her terror like turpine on her tongue. Venom and violence. She remembered thinking, horrified but in some way relieved, that she was going to die in that moment. And she would have, if Svetlana had not found her. But she remembered her terror, choked on it even as an adult, and turned her suddenly burning eyes away from the spot where she'd once crumpled into a defeated heap.

Rathunax cried a sorrowful song, leaping from her back to the east, knowing with a sinking sadness what it was Nayati sought to do in that moment. She merely stood among her flowers, watching them bloom, and wondering what had driven her to this precipice. No, there was no wondering required, she thought with a cruel cutting twist to her mouth. She had lost her home once more, in a way, though it was her family in the end who had won. Nayati understood violence, and she knew inside that they had done it all because they needed to get away from the Moon Goddess and her potential desires to utilize them, destroy them. But she felt as alone in Helovia as she had when she'd first wandered in.

Vadim...she sighed to herself, a smile coming reluctantly to her lips. Yes, she loved him. Though Resplendence had not reacted very well when she'd told her, Nayati could not help how she felt for the quiet, contemplative stallion. Would he forget her, when she left? Would he miss her, worry about her? It hurt to imagine that he would not, but he was a realist, and Nayati was a broken-hearted romanticist. For a moment she considered sending Rathunax to find him, but Helovia was extraordinarily vast, and it would take days if not weeks for Vadim to make it to the Threshold. No...she would tell her mother what needed to be said to the beautiful boy she'd fallen for. Perhaps it made her a coward to disappear without saying goodbye face to face, but she felt that maybe he would be better off without her in the end.

"Thank you," she whispered, to all the Helovian gods, the inherent magic of the land, the Threshold itself. A tear slipped from one ruby eye to caress her cheek lovingly. "You saved me, back then. Thank you." It was all she could say for the land she loved. The land she had to leave.

@[Resplendence]