In a warm sweep of air and a collossal crash, everything was finished. The Dauntless raised his head, armor collapsing across his body and resting against his blackened breast. His body ached with the burns he sustained, but the pain was a mere pebble compared to the pain of dragonfire licking across his skin. Golden eyes narrow some, but concern laces his mind (mind faintly throbbing with the reconnection to his lost companion, whimpering in the distance). Turning, Archibald went to reach forward and down and touch the shoulder of the demigod, praying within his heart that she was not dead. Ophelia, Ophelia. His mind whispers some, a dull thought of the one who should be standing guard over the hybrid filly. Before his pale nose can reach her, however, Roskuld is up and charging and screaming. The massive warlord lifted his head quickly, snorting as he watched her run off toward the shore. "ROSKULD!" He called after her, taking two or three steps in her direction. He watched with curious, concerned eyes as the demigod closed the distance to a spotted figure, one Archibald recognized as Mauja. Archibald could not tell what was happening in the distance, and as he moved his massive hooves forward to follow the Child of Spark, a quick and awkward, dark movement caught his eye. Turning his head, Archibald draped his gaze over his panicked nephew.

In the time it took the behemoth's concentration to be moved from Roskuld to Milo, Loretta had found his side. Her body shook with the joy of their returning bond, and she licked at his left canon happily. "Milo!" Archibald demands, confusion claiming territory on his face. Why was the child running, why was the child here alone, why...why...KNOX! Golden eyes, narrowed with the thoughts racing through his warrior's mind, suddenly widened and scanned hurriedly over the once-battleground. "KNOX!" Archibald called out, his body leaping toward where the tiger's body disappeared. Loretta reached down to pick up their gifted treasure of death, a claw, before bounding after her bondmate. Knox's body materialized from where the tigress once lay, and Archibald was frozen in his tracks in an instant.

The pain of the burns across his body fell away into the darkness as ice and blood grasped his heart. The Dauntless choked silently on his own breath, Loretta whining as she waited beneath his body. Not Knox she whispered faintly, body shaking now from a switch from joy to sorrow, my sister. The red and white malamute finds the ability to move before her bonded does, and she drops the claw before Milo on her way over to where the broken coltstallion lays crumpled, body huddled around the body of Loretta's last sister--the sister she wrestled with, taught, dominated, hunted alongside--gone. The bitch whines, tail tucking against her belly between her legs as she lowers herself to the ground to crawl toward the twin black bodies. Archibald, in all of his glory and might, wanted to move forward but could not move his own, shod hooves. In his mind, he remembered the faintest touch of an odd, Orangemoon snow, the death-defeated filly his body curled around, and the gentle touch of Knox's cannons against his shoulder.

When the gargantuan finally moves, it is only to stand above his brother silently. Thick, tree-like legs press against Knox's muscled body. I am here, his mind speaks the words his mouth cannot form, cannot utter in these circumstances. Archibald knows well what it is like to have a silent mind, a silent heart from the broken tethers of companionship. He and Loretta had battled in the seasons of their silent bond, in the seasons of Archibald's broken magic. The memories are pale in comparison to the pain Archibald can reiterate for his brother--for Archibald's pain was temporary, and Knox's pain was perpetual. As Archibald the Dauntless stood over his brother--always his guardian, his guidance, his leader--he reached down to touch his muzzle to his now freed poll, breathing carefully into the locks of his tangled mane. I am here, Knox, I love you. I am here.

Archibald knew, however, it was not only Manhattan that had died today. Knox was dead too.