For several minutes—hours, maybe—the tall stallion has stood in the mottled shade of blossoming trees. His muscles are tense from inactivity, but he refuses to move—refuses to leave this place, refuses to abandon whatever it was that had brought him here. Shadowed eyes are fixed upon one particular tree (still so distinguishable from the rest, despite the earth having settled again, new buds of spring grass blanketing what was once churned dirt). It looks as though nothing had happened here; as though he had not hovered at her side while her grief had torn her apart, as though the cold dice of fate had not stripped her of everything.

Brown lips press together as the memories swell, heartbreaking, and he can’t help but wonder if that little angel had taken a part of him as well.

What had she meant to him?

There had been no flesh or blood to tie them together—he had not lingered at her birth for her sake. The stallion will be the first to admit that it had been her mother that had captured his interest (his heart), and that his presence at her painful arrival had been little more than coincidence. It all simply happened. He happened to witness a horror more harrowing than any he has seen before, his stone heart happened to crack and crumble. Raw—he remembers how raw his heart was in the wake of his emotions, and how utterly hopeless he had felt, for both of them. For all of them. Little did he know then how much that memory would shape him. In the year since, he has thought of that little angel often. Of all the darkness she has been spared from, of the memories that could have been, of what he could have been (of what they could have been).

Could he have meant anything to her?
(Would he even be worthy of that privilege?)

The back of his eyes sting, and he is grateful for the trees’ cover as he bows his head towards his chest, allowing the tears to wet his cheeks in silent sorrow. The golden band around his leg feels tighter than usual—his personal token from the angel, a reminder of the good when this world can seem so utterly barbaric (the good in himself, even). He brushes it now with whiskery lips, clinging to the memory of a child that could never have been his.

He is not sure how much time passes, then. Quietly the stallion stands, lips pressing lightly against the jeweled band, the spring breeze playing with the fly-aways of his hair. There is no sound to warn him, no fanfare of an entrance, or sweet scent to rouse him from his daze—only the distinct impulse that, suddenly, he is no longer alone.

Green eyes turn to the tree, and she is laying there, tucked on the ground with flowers clasped in her lips. It is not the little angel (although this beauty has undoubtedly been as much a part of his salvation as his destruction), every part of her perfect body tangible and real. He finds his throat tightening at the sight of her, his breath caught, and his heart fluttering in the most pleasurable of ways. The stallion’s first instinct is to run to her, to hold her, but instead he moves further into the shadows, peering through the weeping boughs and underbrush.

Somehow, in this most vulnerable of moments, he recognizes that she needs to be alone. She deserves this moment with her little angel, this moment to relive past grievances, if only to put them to rest for another year (because they can never forget). Rather, he listens, eyes glittering at his name, and hoping that—someday—she will be able to see in her what he does. That someday he will smother this monster inside of him and be worthy of what she deserves (the world). Perhaps, if destiny were kinder, they could have been something for each other—but life is not so easy, and the man is flawed. What has become of him, if nothing more than a mess of pride, impulses, and delusions? (What has become of them?) With his pride stripped and his emotions exposed, he can’t help but think, as he stares at her with lily curls framing her face, that he

—couldn’t—

be without her.

“Speech.”

I found comfort in your words and lost control

and now that you’re far away,

I lost it all.