She had chased the sun each day, ever westward until the miles were leagues and then even those disappeared beyond counting or significance. Though it was a marvel how far she had come to find her way home again, no sunset in long weeks had held any sense of progress for she still had not been where she wanted to be...where she needed to be. Even this evening, when her hooves found the dry and barren earth of the Dragon's Throat, the sun she had followed still seemed to sink away from her as it set, too distant, still unreachable, like she hadn't found the home she'd left, a home she could never quite reach again. Copper sands still covered the island, but without the pieces of her fractured family upon them they could never shine as bright of feel as warm.

For a shining cycle of the seasons she had felt untouchable; surrounded by her husband and their children, in the Sun's good graces, and wholly content with her world and her realm. Starting with Asavvi it had all come crashing down around the Sunspear's arrogant ears. Her dreamy little daughter had gone missing and almost before the battlemare could blink she had sent off Einarr and Gwaihir in search even as her body had been crippled by the throws of labor. Vastra and Castor had come into the world to be surrounded by Megaera's grief and fear. She had cared for them as best she could during their most vulnerable time but she had been driven half mad with worry and indescribably lessened by her companion's absence. Living without Gwaihir had been nearly impossible. With the eagle's soul and hers tied so tightly, the physical distance that had separated them while her searched the lands beyond Helovia and she remained had felt like a gaping wound. Without half her heart, half her mind, half her soul, she had felt weak and panicky and hollow; a body that could merely exist. As soon as she was able, Meg had gone to fetch him back again. 

To think on that time now was sickening and shameful. In her grief, her drive to get back her daughter and her mate an her companion, she had let down so many others.

Vastra.

Castor.

Nizho.

Mordecai.

Dragon's Throat. 

She had left the care and safety of her four remaining children and her entire herd up to chance. It wasn't her fault (as Gwaihir reminded her now that they had found each other again) that twins had come in the wake of disaster, but Meg agonized over her lack of attentiveness; disaster or no, they had deserved so much better from her. 

With that heavy weight upon her soul the Sunspear landed on the dune's crest, casting a long shadow that carved out the setting sun's long golden rays. strained from long flights her wide wings stretched out to either side, not quite wanting to fold properly after working so hard for so long. The eagle joined her, finding a perch on the layers of leather across her back. "Home again, my Meg." soothed the eagle's voice in her mind, but the mare's features didn't fall into the relieved smile he might have hoped for. Solemn eyes gazed out where once bright fires had burned and she glanced at the bird on her back but made no reply. The desert might have been the same but so much about what made it home had been altered, just as she had been altered. It was evidenced in her body and her countenance, with less of her previous kinetic spark and more rigidity, muscles that were as strong as ever but she was leaner, somehow harder. It was like iron, a shell she had built even within her leather armor--within her very skin-- and it held in the emotions that had left her scattered so that she could face what was left of her life.

megaera
this also has been one of the dark places of the earth