The sun sat heavily upon it's golden pedestal, draping the earth with warm light and burning away the frozen mists that hung so heavily across the earthen floor. The sky was a frigid expanse of blue, carefully cradling the burning disk that served as representative for the Dragon's Throat. A deep silence was sought between the trunks of trees and stalks of grass, a sort of quiet that would resonate in one's bones and refresh the mind.

A reticence to baptize the soul.

She didn't dare break the silence she had discovered, couldn't bear to slide the knife of sound between the ribs of absence. The blushed pegasus had never been much for spirituality, but here in this forgotten fold of Helovia she could swear that she had found religion. From her lips poured breath yearning for absolution, from her winged sides dripped a craving for something of substance, something more. There was an increasing awareness of her own hoof falls, the lightness of them all at once infuriated and saddened her; it was as if the universe had forgotten the weight that it had placed on her thin shoulders, dismissed the crushing burden of the past.

Yet, she would not dwell in her sadness. Instead, the desert rose embraced the fury that sparked in her chest, opened her battered heart to the familiar feeling of fire sliding through her veins. The anger rushed over her in a sickly sweet wave, her safety blanket and lifelong companion. A bitter smile twisted at her pastel lips and turned her countenance cold. Eyes turned skyward in silent exaltation, she inhaled deep to fuel the inferno of her rage.

There were no hymns sung for the bastard children of whores and she would find no savior here.

A cruel laugh burst forth and shattered her coveted quiet, an act of violence against the machinations of fate. Let them come, let the consequences of her existence pour poison down her throat, let the very essence of the earth crash down upon her in it's spite. Let them shriek and wail and let them choke her with her own venom. There was nothing that existed in the cosmos that could make her a victim again, not a thing in the endless realm of creation that would smother her defiance.

Let them come, let them come, let them come. She would meet them there on her soul-turned-battlefield and she would stand victorious. With all her might, with all that was left of her shredded self, she would rise in spite and she would rise in flames.

She would scream them into dust.

But what was that? The anger that had flooded her heart was diverted for the moment, locked away into her subconscious by twin wraiths. Both horned, an equine and a deer were before her, yet one lay upon the earth with a heaving chest. Eyes narrowing, Orithia approached with not so much as an inkling of caution and broke the silence yet again.

"Only madmen and hierophants grin in the face of agony; tell me, which one are you?"