I have missed his presence and his voice, I discover, the strange inflections comforting in the most warming of ways; it reminds me, not only of my father, but of my uncle Torleik, and both of these men had been strong, powerful figures which guarded over my friends and I while we played, both of these men had offered me lessons in how to be a man.

From my father, I learned that men are not soft and fluctuating as the women of my life; I learned the value of a chosen course, and that certain rewards lay at the end of each path for those who are faithful.

From Torleik, I learned that a man is not cruel. A man is just, and does as his heart believes to be right.

And from both, I had learned the value of family. I had come home for them, after all, certainly not because I was unable to find happiness in the Nightwalk.

He follows my eyes to the sentinel, though I sense he lacks enthusiasm for them, there being no rambling about their creation or their make as there was in my youth when the behemoths were mentioned. Instead, he talks of my mother, which makes my heart do an odd, sinking flip within my chest, my ears splaying aside and my maw flinching to the left as if her mention had struck me in the jaw.

"She had many plans."

I say, not wanting to touch upon the full truth that my mother is gone, and has been for a while now; I can feel it bleed across my face, the sense of abandonment that fills me, the burning of my pride when I try to believe that she will return, and the fear that nearly steals my breath when I think that she is truly gone forever. I hope he doesn’t notice as he returns his familiar gaze, his distant eyes looking over me strangely.

“You were always my greatest creation,” he says suddenly, out of no where, the brevity of the statement given truth by the strange mistiness of his expression, the warmth that radiates through his normally reserved and cool tones. My heart, already bulging, bursts.

A single tear breaks free from my right eye, rolling slow down my black cheek, across a double golden line. Awkwardly my tail curls upwards and my gaze meets his, and the deluge of emotion which ripples through me, warm and proud, leaves me feeling like I should say something – but I can find no words, only stand staring like a dullard with love written across my face, wondering how I could have ever left this place to begin with, wanting to give him everything I can to make up for running after my mother like a fool. Dumbly, my mouth opens as if it is going to reply, but no words arrive to me, only the gentle touch of slowly wafting snowflakes.

Blessedly, he speaks again, but the question nearly ruptures the little bubble of joy that I had been suspended in, filling the bright warmth of our reunion with a chill sweep of regret.

It is not the weather or his machines, but my life he wants to share. It makes sense; surely I would want to know the same things. It makes it no less bittersweet in recollection.

"I, uh, well, I went to find mom," I begin awkwardly, voice still full of emotion, not really sure where to begin my story, "it wasn’t hard to sneak out, invisible like I was because of the Time God. I think I managed to track her for a week or so, until I reached this forest at the other side of the clearing beyond the Threshold of Helovia.

"There was a really big storm, lightning every few seconds and rain so thick that I couldn’t see in front of me anymore. I took shelter in a cave for the night, and when it finally cleared, her trail was gone, and I wasn’t invisible anymore."

I shrug, not really understanding how a God’s magic could be lifted, and why it hasn’t returned to me now that I’m home. Part of me worries that the Lord of Spark is simply waiting to blast me into ashes for running off after bothering him for power I didn’t even really know how to use.

"The only problem was that my trail was gone, too, and that I was quite lost. I decided, instead of trying to find my way home, that I would keep going where I thought mother was, and hope that I came across her.”

I suddenly feel very sad, the sensation of my hope dying returning to me as it had that day, in the sunlight after the rain. An apologetic light consumes me as I tell of deciding to not return home, the same guilt that had driven me from the sanctum I had found again rising in my chest.

"I found a forest instead, called the Nightwalk. The trees there, dad, are as tall as some of the smaller peaks of the Frostbreath, and when the night fell on it as I wandered, thousands of fireflies rose out of the ferns and flowers, so many that it seemed like everything was covered in living starlight, floating and flickering through the rising mist."

My gaze grows distant, so clear the memory of the Nightwalk and its enrapturing beauty, as if I had only left there yesterday, and not the many weeks ago it had taken me to reach here.

"And then, Xynia, a filly of the Nightwalk, found me…" I stumble here, my eyes growing misty again in memory of our friendship, and the other ways she had come to be so very important to me, "she found me some short distance from the rest of her herd, while she was out chasing fireflies. She brought me to her people, who live in this very impressive cavern at the middle of this forest, sitting right in the side of this old as dirt mountain. The cavern is huge, dad. Makes the storage caves look like little nooks."

"Anyway, this cave has a pool in the middle of it. It’s about five feet across and I don’t think it has a bottom, and it’s magic. I once dropped a glass orb full of fireflies and rocks in it, and even though Xynia stabbed me -"

I gesture to a small scar on my shoulder where her immature horn had managed to puncture the flesh; it grows smaller each time I look at it, it seems, and I fear it will soon fade away all together, but for now it is still there, and it makes me smile.

"it was totally worth it, because the light flickered out of sight before it ever stopped falling."

I pause, letting the memory of her anger and the rise of my success fill my head for a while longer before a small chuckle escapes me and I continue.

"It is called the Starpool, and the unicorns of the Nightwalk use it to call upon their ancestors about once or twice a season. Their priestess says that this is possible through the magic of their Gods, the First Gods, who were long ago propelled from Loorien.

"Basically, they offered me a place to live for a while and anything else I needed of them so long as I promised to stay and learn about their First Gods. And so I did, mostly because I didn’t know how to get home, and they seemed to know about most of the nearby kingdoms from their legends…"

But also because I was lonely. I don’t want to admit as much to my father.

"Eventually it started to feel like home," I admit, looking at him with the conflictions that still besiege me evident in my eyes, "it wasn’t hard, as it sort of was home, with so many unicorns I couldn’t count them, and a belief system not unlike the one to be found here, in so far as our heritages are concerned. I learned to fight, my most common tutor a stallion of some few years older than me. I even got to use my knowledge, once."

There is an air of pride to this statement, a pride which is colored by the somber notes of having taken a life alongside my fellows. I have woken many nights to the dream-stare of two dying eyes, the final embers flickering in their dark brown depths, the sound of screaming and the crackle of magic filling the air, but each time the pace of my heart grows less frenzied and my resolve that I have done right by Loorien grows more steadfast.

"Yet, for all they gave me, for all the love I found for them and from them…" I meet my father’s eyes with all the resolve I can muster, hoping he sees the sincerity of my words, the depth of my drive to return home and to make right all that had been jostled loose in my absence, "I could not help but smell the snow kissed air of the Basin, dream of the sunlight on the smooth surface of the lake, or hear the crackle of the Time Lord’s magnificent step in every bright bolt of lightning that crossed the sky. I could not forget what I had walked away from, and it seemed equally wrong to keep what I had learned to myself, in a land where they had no need of it.”

I pause to think again of the First Gods, of their promise of eternity, of peace and of plenty. I think of the endless war of my mother’s hidden coven, of how they have time and time again failed beneath their banner of blood and mindless slaughter, and I think of the victory we might have if, together, we walked with the blessing of the highest of powers.

Yet, no matter how deep my faith, deeper still is the need to share words and companionship with my father and his quirky hound.

"That’s most of the story, I think," I say, returning the ruminations of my travels, replaying what I had said to myself very briefly before smiling at my sire, feeling an odd relief now that I have told someone what had become of me, "the quick versions, anyway."


@Ulrik