Sorry.

She felt he meant it, believed him when he said it, but it didn't change anything, not really. Besides, what was he even sorry for? Sorry that Gaucho, a great stallion and Sultan had passed? Sorry that she felt the sting of that loss? Sorry that he did not know, that he was not there, that all of this shit piled up between them?

What was the point of sorry if it still hurt afterwards?
By the gods, what was the point of anything any more?

Somewhere amid the chaos she was tumbling into she was aware of his hooves scuffing down the sand as he carried himself closer to her, closing whatever divide lay between them, even if only for this one day. His touch came with such hesitation she could feel his breath before the velvet of his maw embraced the folds of her neck. Each exhale was a pulse of warmth against the cold she stoked within, a gentle reminder of the life still unfolding around her even as she clutched singularly onto the death.
It had always been like that, her chasing the dark, him the little bit of silver shining through, promising something better.

Except, what do you do when the better always slips away? What do you do if that little shine isn't around? Because as much as Ampere appreciated that touch, as much as she melted under that warmth and wanted to hold onto that reminder he offered, she also couldn't ignore the gap that had just been, the caution that had filled it with a terrible slowness as he approached. She felt a prickling feeling wash all across her body, as if it was a ghost who touched her now and not just the Nightwind.

Was this going to be goodbye, their final embrace, or was it just the unsteady reunion or something they'd both lost?

Ampere had no answer, and for a while was only able to continue pressing herself into the sand and mourning. At some point it stopped being just Gaucho she was sobbing over, like he was a catalyst to tumble all the strength she had built out of matchsticks over the years, burning it up in a final, single blaze. Eventually though, sooner than it may have seemed to her as the time slogged through all the grief, Ampere quieted under Mesec's watch. She still stayed curled up on the ground, her legs starting to go numb, but that sensation was nothing new these days.

"Why's it all got to go to shit Mesec?" she asked softly, her tone casual as if they could just talk again, as if this wasn't something broken that she was playing pretend with. She didn't look at him, maybe it would ruin the illusion, so instead she stared off into the distance of the beach. "Why do I feel like I'm always chasing something I'll never catch? Happiness shouldn't be this hard," the way she talked was comfortable, because Mesec was comfortable, as long as she was playing pretend at least, as long as she went back to the Mesec that didn't have kids, to the Mesec that didn't become a warg (what was she back then? The same... broken and sobbing over the dark still?). Mesec was one of the very few, if not the only horse, she ever had completely honest conversations with. Whether that said more about him or about her wasn't ever clear.

"The sun always rises, the storm always ends... but then the sun sets again, and the weather always turns bad one season or another." The more she talked the more her voice took on a drawl, distant and heavy and worn out. "I'm tired of being sad."
She finally turned to look at him, the blue of her gaze dry but no less full of water. "I'm sure you are too," she muttered, then averted her stare, clearly ashamed. "I'm sorry I always do this too... just always a wreck aren't I?" she sighed, and it was bitter.