She felt far too old and far too brittle to be committing these murderous acts. She had killed her family time and time again, bringing a sharp blade down upon their chances at happiness. At times Essetia considered herself a masochist. Opportunities that were so often served to her on lifelike silver platters always transformed into ashes of her own making, her fires setting everything around her ablaze. Even when the tears began to stream down her face, the soft firelight casting an evening glow across her blurring vision, she couldn't find reason enough to change the way she behaved. Somehow the pain soothed the petty aches in her broken, guarded heart.

Following the narrow path of wolf prints toward the Flats felt unnatural and somehow frightening. Instead of returning to lands of old, ones dear to her soul, Essetia found herself stealing away in the night, skittish and cautious of where and with whom she ended up. The former spy was not disillusioned about her asinine decisions to take flight when she should have stayed to fight, but time had already been mended. Her clock had long since been erased. 

As Romul wandered ahead of them both, Essetia was content enough to daydream about days that were now too far away. While she did so, she carefully traced the outline of her companion’s shoulders and the way they rose and fell with each tentative step. Time had worn the arctic wolf despite Essetia’s silent pleas for him to remain young and carefree forever. In some ways his aging was her fault, she could tell from the hardening lines around his gold-blushed eyes, but age had done just as much to change them both, which was why she didn’t linger on the worries for long. 

The sun had crept below the horizon line hours prior to the pair’s arrival to the Flats, but light had not fled from the skies entirely. Instead, it was replaced by the dazzling starlight of a Birdsong midnight. Clusters of silver and white were painted up above and down below the moon’s expectant face creating an iridescent blanket of scintillating illusion. It was the first time that Essetia and Romul had feasted upon such a sight and before they could make their way to the water’s edge, they stopped to gawk openly at the bounty of the stars. 

“What do we do now?” she questioned of the wolf, who turned his curious eyes to hers when the quiet words reached his tethered soul. He seemed to mull over her request, but did little to calm her mounting fears. Essetia had made plenty of ill-advised choices of late and Romul had taken to remaining silent about them. The mare couldn’t blame him for such drastic actions because she had forced him to leave his comforts behind too many times… She had to start digging her heels in if she expected that to change.