As the sun sank, the small mare seemed to grow tense and this made me worry. Her longing gaze was cast towards the sun as if it held her redemption and the sight brought a pang of sympathy to my chest. I came to her side now, brushing flesh against bone and it was an agonizing feeling. “Perhaps we could watch the sun go down together… and then I should help to find you shelter for the night, as the temperature will drop into a painful freeze.” I rested a thoughtful gaze upon her face and I wondered what I could do for her. I wanted to help nurse her back to health and I felt a deep connection to the broken creature. I wasn’t sure what kept me at her side but I vowed to remain there until she was restored.

Her soft touch was something that caused me exquisite joy. It was so utterly unexpected and forlorn that it made my skin bristle with pleasure. I turned to gaze at her and her beauty was nearly stunning as images of what she had once been danced through my head. I was sure that at one time her heart had been full with life and with a love for such existence. Her eyes still burned with a fire that I envied and I knew that she was not yet destroyed and this made me reach out to her. Pushing my muzzle against her own, I promised to keep her well until she was strong enough to decide whether my company was to her likeness. Do not worry angel, I will ward away the devil’s desires and give you safety until your return to heaven. She was certainly an angelic creature and I could only ponder what blessing had brought me to her side.


The sun was setting now over the horizon and the nightlife was awakening to call out to one another, echoes in the Edge that sounding haunting and yet beautiful. However, this did not calm me, instead I became tense. I felt my sovereign nature being threatened due to the ivory treasure still clinging to my flanks. I had no warmth to offer other than my own and I had no way of asking her to move to another location in such a weakened state and so I stretched my desolate wings across her, these shrunken reminders of flights that I would never take, air I would never breathe and the land that I would never be freed of. I longed to taste the clouds upon my tongue and feel the rays of the sun upon my soaring back, but these delights were only recognized by those who were capable. This made me lower my face towards the ground that I was forever rooted, rage and bitterness filling my lungs with molten fire that licked up my sides and coated my throat with ash. What had I done to deserve such a disorder, such a disease, such a deformity… I only asked for light to guide these feelings of pain away until I could nurse my selfish vanities in isolation.

A deep feeling of loss brought frozen terror into my stomach as Adura moved from my side. Her wishes were her own, but this broken heart could not relish such a decision. I perched widened eyes upon her now, confusion evident in my face as she turned away. She would not know this hurt that I harbored simply because I would not let it show. If she chose to abandon me, I could not refuse because it was not in my nature to do such a thing. She shook in the cold and I had not the heart to move once again closer, merely struggling with my colliding desires; one pushing me to her and one pressing me away. “If I have done something to offend… I could leave your company if so desired.” Looking away now, the shadows of the night seemed to drift closer, fear grasping my heart as it did every night. Screams built in my throat, pushing and clawing their way to the surface and still no sound became of them. It was silent illness that I suffered and I knew that she knew of such ailments, but I would not press her any further. I prayed once more for the light to invade me, make me whole, and yet the darkness filled me, stripping all goodness from my soul as all the color had been stripped of the earth to welcome the wintry cold.

[W/C: 761]