The star girl slipped past the sentinels, returning home after a long venture to clear her head. Well, in an attempt to clear her head, and it had been unsuccessful. Silver eyes scanned up their forms as they stood lifeless and stoic against the frozen landscape. Was there even magic left in them? If she abandoned the mountains and returned an unwelcomed outcast, would they even spring to a defense? She didn't know, and honestly didn't care. Home felt less and less as such after each passing day. She hadn't seen Enna in seasons, and Ashamin.... Well, he was a different story altogether. She had given him his blade, the one she had nearly died retrieving, and in a desperate effort to fake contentment with him, he believed everything was okay. Perhaps that was for the best.

A cry broke the silence, nearly muffled by the hood she wore up to her ears to keep warm, the same ears that rotated as her head twisted sharply towards the herdland border. It was shrill and pained, and begged for attention. She took off at a gallop, hooves beating into the newly fallen snow, ears pivoting to catch any further sound. She slowed to a canter as she approached a small gathering, and a trot replaced her speed as she noticed the lack of any panicked voices or frantic movements. The faintest smell of blood tainted the air, but it didn't seem to bother any members of the meeting.

As she circled the group, looking for an opening to see what the meeting orbited around, she realized she recognized no one. Not the blue ocean girl, or the antlered buck, not the bearded elder or the strangely-horned doe. It wasn't until she saw the golden girl and the haruspex that she felt like less of a stranger. But the two weren't alone in the center, touching and caressing and getting close. A small colt, on spindled legs, wobbled near his mother. But it didn't take long to place the pieces together, to work out why Ashamin was marveling over the newest member of the herd. Rexanna said it, confirming the news.

Father.

Ashamin was the babe's father.

It came as a shock, but the feelings of jealousy and bitter resentment for the new mother was short-lived. What she felt was different. It was like spending hours gluing together the pieces of a broken vase, only to drop it again as you went to put it back in the shelf. Each broken piece broke into three, and she had no energy to collect the shards. She had done a lot of thinking and spent plenty of times nursing her emotional wounds, and she had come to terms with her feelings of love and loss. But the scene depicted before her didn't make the newly healed wounds any easier to bear. The fact he was the newborns father...

The thief was beautiful. She was emblazoned with gold, with blackened filigree decorating her form. Golden like the sun, glittering and alluring and everything opposite to the corporal. She was dark. Midnight like the darkened sky, etched with white pinpoints, carved from something much more cold. She didn't know the golden girl, but immediately the differences in appearance were obvious. We're they just as different at heart?

She forced a smile to her lips, but the expression didn't quite make it to her eyes. "Congratulations, Rexanna." Her words we steady, articulate. It was all she could offer through her mixed emotions. Eyes turned to the painted buck, and though she felt the shattered pieces of her heart twist, she maintained her forced facade. "And to you, Ashamin..." She trailed off, pausing long enough allowing her words to calm within her throat. "The same to you."

Silver hovered over the boy, who was brought gifts of warmth and light. Perhaps it was a good omen, being ushered into a world where, despite the chill of the world and the bitterness of jaded souls, light was still shared among a family woven together by strings of fate. And despite her own bitterness towards the newborn colt, he was still part of her family, and she would protect him just as she protected the others who lived and died within the mountain-cradled valley.

Eyes returned to the glowing mother. Though she would keep a watchful eye, the corporal couldn't help protect them if they remained outside the borders. "If I may be so blunt, I suggest you return to the safety of shelter as soon as you can. The wolves who circle our home will soon be getting desperate, and I would hate to see his light snuffed before he gets to see his first morning."

The star girl began her retreat, turning from the warm glow to face the coldness of home. Her head twisted back to the happy family. "My blessings to all three of you."

And as she receded into the night, facing away from the merriment, her sadness finally broke through. Thankfully, no one was around to see it.


words

- when a shooting star streaks through the blackness - - turning night into day- - make a wish and think of me -