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Gone. Dead.

It whispered cruelly in his head, malevolent, disgusting as it slithered and coiled through his mind. He stared blankly ahead, walking endlessly, pushing onward even when he had no goal or direction. He had nothing, much less that. Were he any less broken, any less covered in blood and tears and despair, he would have been angry. Furious. Railing against fate, or the gods, or whoever the hell up there decided that Cera deserved this. Had he not been through enough? His body was testament to everything he'd soldiered through, too young, too breakable - nobody had ever cared. He still stood up.

It seemed terrifyingly easy, this time.

Ilaria, perched upon his hindquarters, was silent. A sahara of emptiness when he sought to reach her, neither certain what to say to themselves much less the other. They plodded on, his insides alternating between a despair, a loss, that he never experienced and a simmering anger. He felt...cold. Numb. As if the shattered pieces of his soul had been kicked away too far to ever reconnect, were the pieces ever large enough to be assembled once more. Cera had gazed down at those glittering sunny shards, dispassionate, lost. He had turned and walked away from them, leaving them to their glistening, lost to the sands and surf of time and grief.

Gaucho. Cera paused at the first word that had passed his bonded's mind that he'd been privy to. There was no response, and the wall was re-erected between them, but Cera clung to the directional word. His pace slowed, and the young Forger stared down at his hooves, idly watching stray particles drift and bounce off the striped keratin. Purpose. I need purpose. There was only one way in which to build himself back up again, and if he could not work on the damage yet, he could at least lay the foundation. We are a building. Ilaria said nothing, but Cera could still sense a dull throb of concern from her side of the bond, from where she'd failed to suppress it.

Lifting his head, the boy cried out, sharp and strong.

Gaucho had always come when he needed him. The last of the few Cera could count on. Though he did not know how his faith remained unshaken, the youth indulged in prayer, for the Wildfire to have the skill to help fix Cera.

Meat and flesh and heart could not do any longer. Cera needed to become titanium. He needed to be the very metals he worked with.

@[Gaucho]