It was her fault.

The infection, the forbidden lust, the pain and suffering, the senseless murder of a child so innocent, the always lingering paranoia, the shadows that had lurked just out of sight at all times.

He remembered it all, and it was her fault.

The memories had come rushing back just a few days back, first in what he’d believed to be a hellish dream, but upon waking, he’d found it all to have been too real to be nothing more than a dream. It was he who had carried out the vicious acts that caused a life to end, the life of his own daughter; the very thought still caused a sharp, physical pain in his chest, as though the spirit of his dearest daughter was piercing him with a steel pike.

Talbot had seemed relieved upon his awakening, his master no longer the trembling, murmuring man haunted by shadows and things that were not there, but with one monster gone, it seemed the striped stallion had become another. One plagued with thoughts of betrayal, doubts and fears; what if he did not remember all that had happened? Had others fallen before him? Had he destroyed bonds made years ago, ones that he wouldn’t be able to mend? He was unable to even place just how long ago it had been since the Moon had placed the curse on him in the first place, but with Talbot’s assistance, he was alarmed to find that it had been nearly a startling four years.

Four. Years.

Throughout them, there had been times when the curse that gripped him had lifted, when the land of Helovia was void of magic, and when the flood had come to so-call ‘purify’ the lands. Beyond that, there were more holes in his memory than he wanted to even begin trying to fill, and it was to Talbot he looked for the answers. The hellhound would be heavily relied upon to help fill in the gaps, but Crowley was not so foolish as to think the answers would come completely nor quickly.

Today, like every day since his revival, so to speak, thoughts of his family weighed heavily on his mind. Asch, a filly so young holding so much promise, was gone, destroyed by his own hoof and horn. Arwen, the pale daughter who had looked absolutely petrified as he struck her beloved twin down, who he had not seen nor heard of since he’d fled the scene. Rhiannon, whom he recalled a brief encounter on a sandy beach, one which hadn’t ended in his eldest’s favor, he also had not the foggiest clue had ended up. And then, then there was Arah.

As the thought of the pale doe entered his mind, the sky seemed to open up above them, beginning with a soft drizzle that turned quickly into a torrential downpour. Luckily, the canopy above proved a buffer from the relentless, pelting drops, but none of it mattered. What did matter, he wondered, if the ones he had loved were gone? Didn’t trust him anymore, and never would again? He deserved it for what he had done, for allowing the curse to drive him to such measures, to the murder of his own blood, but… How was he to know what things he’d be driven to do under the influence of the Moon’s curse?

It was the tensing of Talbot standing beside him that coaxed the brindle from his thoughts. The hound stared hard ahead of them, and slowly, almost carelessly Crowley followed his gaze. A part of him hoped to see some monster ready to carry him to perdition, to punish him for the cruel deeds and damage done. What he did see was almost ghostly against the pounding sound of rain smacking against the treetops and the droplets that did manage to leak from above, creating a misty gaze between them, and for a long time, the dual horned beast could do little more than stare. Disbelief filled his hardened, yellowed gaze, tinged with sadness as they looked on at the figure so familiar to him. A maiden he’d assumed would be long gone, and one that he expected to turn and run once she noticed him, a demon in her midst.

Drawing in a deep, almost trembling breath, he spoke, his tone soft, but tattered and broken just as his soul was.

“... Arah?”

"Talk talk talk"


[Sorry for the wait, darling! <3 Excited to see where this goes! @Arah ]