By the precepts of her purity

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The cliffs were grim and grey under a cloudy, drizzling sky. The green of the exotic forest shimmered quietly amidst the grey, muffled by the weather and the condense that was left cringing on the ground like snakes. The mare wandered through the mull sand of the beach, into the trees. Leaving her boat pulled up to the shore. It swayed with the waves, bumped and brushed the coarse sands in that rhythm as if it didn’t want her to go.

Of course she went anyway.
Closure, she needed closure.

Of all the Ill Gods that had attempted to sow chaos and despair, it had been this God that had rose up from the ashes of the Riptide Isles. The False Goddess that had managed to make her perseverance stumble and falter. Through the flames and the smoke of the battle she had stood frozen in a statue-like slumber, caged inside a mind that wanted to turn to dust as a consequence of an earlier time long past. And she had been smothered by it. Scared, because how could she had known; what reasons did she have, even now, to believe the Tigress wasn’t a part of the Denebian doctrine. How could she know that the Entity wasn’t a part of her old… Of her past?

She wasn’t sure why she had found herself in the midst of a forsaken battlefield; haunted by the forlorn, but she had. Closure, it echoed against the walls of her mind once more. There was a lock here, binding the lost with the living, smoldering in its soft crystalline embrace between the grains and the ashes. And there, in that same embrace, was the pain again. The betrayal; the hurt. As a chill wind it caressed her cheeks and ruffled feathers that grew from the sides of her head. She closed her eyelids against the cruelty of the world. The drizzle continued to come down and she got remembered of her three blind days. What if she had been blind that day, too? When the Tigress had stroke the claws of snake-poison and spit her hell fire-blood — could not having known her catlike form have made a difference? I would have felt it if it was true.

But she didn’t know.
She didn’t remember.

And even if she did, she didn't.

Her golden eyes turned to the ground and poked into the sand with her hoof aimlessly. She huffed, inside her head there was muffled laughter. Why would she ever think this would give her closure? It wasn’t like she could speak to the Goddess.

She was dead.

And there was nothing concealed in the haze of silence that was left in the afterglow of the yesterday.    

Her eyes rolled up to the forest border, where the leaves of evergreen trees swayed in the ocean winds. She thought about Beest, who she had met here that day, too. Hadn’t seen him since. In the end there were only empty hearts, so she set free the essence of wasted nostalgia. Closure.

I should just go back, but as she started crossing the lush, green vegetation, as she wandered back to the shore, her eyes fell on a patch of long grass on the side of the road. It was framing something in its midst; gleaming in the wet damp of the drizzle. Maren came closer. A teacup? she questioned; pondered while around her the sound of drops falling from leaf to leaf echoed against the intangible atmosphere of the bubble that had swollen around her. But it was so clearly a teacup. And so pretty. She brought her nose closer, smelled it, but she sensed nothing but the scent of rain and the wet earth as it carved a path into her nostrils. She touched it, pushed it and suddenly the teacup revealed the shape of an egg; and, surprised, she pushed that too, out of the patch of grass and watched it roll to its side, exposed in its bare oval-ness; slightly dirtied by the moist soil as the piece of china lay uselessly next to it.

The tiger mare looked at it, intensely with her ears folded forward, eyes big and her feathered hands stretched forwards to keep the drizzle and light from her eyes. To see.

An egg? But it was rather big, she stressed in thought, and suddenly she had to think about all the people she had met so far; about the companions they brought with them.It was something she didn’t need, had barely paid attention too, but they were circling through her mind now. As how this egg had lain in the midst of a wet patch of grass, dirtied by the earth: Her mind lay in the midst of loneliness, dirtied by the hatred she secretly felt for the current state of the world — don’t you see? The Riftians are a danger to this world — but it was only she who saw that. Only she who felt that. Who understood. And she was lonely. And the egg looked the part, as well.

So Maren’s belly found the wet dusty soil; sat down right in front of the ivory colored oval and looked at it with eyes of longing. The grown-up mare scraped her hoarse throat to form a murmur. “...You know, Mr. Egg, only because I am mentally unstable right now doesn't mean I will take care of you to see if you puke rainbows.” Such rude words slowly shaped by scoffing whispers, yet sounding sorry as they were left from Maren’s hesitant lips in a heavy breath.   

There was a pause. One in which Maren looked at the egg with a melancholy look on her face since she finally realized it.

"You know... I wouldn't even consider taking care of an egg if my mental condition was straight.”

There was another pause

But then she chuckled, softly to herself. And to the egg, if that counted. "So basically I am telling you that I am mentally unstable." She rolled her eyes. Somewhere in denial, still. But it felt so shameful to say out loud. So stupid; idiotic, as if she was sprouting nonsense on her tongue. "Either way you wouldn't want to have me as your... your -" Mother? No. "As your companion." She smiled, a soft kind of sadness reflecting in her eyes. Because she realized it was the truth, she realized she would never be fit to be a mother. Even a companion would be a stretch, as well. "I really am not mentally stable right now," she admitted again. Again, this time to herself.

Because wasn’t this all? Wasn’t she just finally admitting how screwed up she had become (How she had lost the way she was supposed to go). Her voice cracked.

"What should I do?" she whispered, exhausted.