like a jar, you housed infinite tenderness
and infinite tenderness shattered you

The temperature is falling rapidly, but the clouds seem to have fled far, far away, leaving the heavens open and dazzling. Radiant. The milky way streaks across the outer edge of the sky, leaving darkness and light and the imagination of other worlds in its wake. Space - whatever is out there - seems to call to Yael and wake her from a restless sleep. Her eyes open to a star-filled sky; she’s had a similar unhindered view in the Desert, but the constellations here are altogether unrecognizable.

This recognition strikes her as odd at first. Perhaps it is her sleep-addled mind? No… no, it can’t be just that. Yael jerks her head up from its pillow of pine needles - all of a sudden, she is wide awake. Her heart begins to pound, much like it did upon her arrival, and despite the cold she begins to sweat and tremble. While her makeshift bed looks up to the open sky, Yael seeks the vast expanse of the cliffs that Lyanna showed her. Hauling herself to her hooves, she takes off in a western direction, weaving through the dark night and dense trees as quickly as she can.

It’s a foolish and treacherous drive. The little golden mare stumbles multiple times, unsure of her footing and somewhat lost. Once, she falls to her knees and scrapes them on a jutting stone, but plows on into the night, trying to remember in which direction the sun set, and traveling away from it. Eventually, she does find the outer limits of the cliffs and exhales with relief, her breath coming in visible puffs in the night air. And oh, how raggedy she must look. Twigs and leaves caught in her wings, skinned knees, trembling with both cold and anxiety.

Their names are on her lips as she scans the sky frantically, searching the dots for some pattern that jogs her memory. It isn’t there! This is not the same sky she’d lain under with her lover, not the same sky she’d taught to her children. Oh G-d, Oh Adonai! Her breath catches in her throat again, and fresh tears spring from her eyes, as hopelessness sinks back in. It’s true, it’s all true. Her worst fears have been realized. That little nagging voice in the back of her head was right! They are lost and gone forever, this is not the world she knows.

Alone, on the edge of the cliff, Yael sobs her heart out. The winds whip around her and though her skin grows cold, she seems impervious (she is not). The names of her beloved children tumble out repeatedly, as if repeating them could cross whatever magic bridge she’d travelled and bring her back to her most precious gaggle.

“Mixael… Etro… Munroe… Gaza… Keetra...“

The names go on and on as she pulls up each child from memory, and then their children. She could not (would not) ever forget them.