The world had finally stopped spinning. It was dark and cold and endless, and she couldn’t tolerate another moment of it. The cobalt unicorn mare, star swept and starry eyed and carved from midnight, was ready to return to her place in the sky. She stood silhouetted by the murky red light that filled this place. She was once someone, she at one time belonged somewhere, at one point in her life she had been consumed by purpose. And now she was nothing. She didn’t know who she was, where she was from, other than bits and pieces and snippets provided by strangers that had once been friends, or lovers, or something or nothing. She didn’t know what to make of the mess that had settled upon her.

Tears rolled down her cheeks. She couldn’t do it again. She couldn’t bring herself to look at another vague face and tell them that she didn’t remember. She had been happier not knowing, but she couldn’t go back to that. She hated herself for, at one time, being content with existing as a nobody, and though it had been easier, it was a lie. All of this was a lie. She had abandoned her children. She had abandoned her herd. She had abandoned her post, and her family, and everything that had once been important to her. But that was all gone now. She couldn’t find an answer, couldn’t find forgiveness, couldn’t find redemption.

She felt lost, and the remainder of her glass house lay in ruins around her hooves, filling her with anger and resentment and the taste of bitter loss. Her head ached, and pounded, and screamed. She was consumed by it all, and as the fire burned what remained of her foundation, licked the pillars and columns that supported the glass roof that hung above her, tore through all of the threads that once belonged to elegant tapestries and now laid in ruin upon the floor, she knew there was only one way to stop it. There was only one way to preserve what was left, and to prevent experiencing the collapse of what she had been able to contain and hold together.

She looked over the edge, stared the inevitable straight in the eye. She needed to stop the seething agony that ripped through her. This was for Erebos and his gleaming empire up north. This was for Mesec, and the betrayal she had committed against him. This was for Vesper and Virga, the children who she had neglected and abandoned, and perhaps more specifically for Virga, her life for his, her sacrifice so he may return home and unscathed back to his father and sister. This was for all of those who she had forgotten, and who had forgotten her. She had allowed the demons to coral her to the very corner of oblivion, and there was only one way out.

Blood and greed and rubies painted this world red. She became lost within it, letting it taunt her, egg her on, encourage her to leap. It promised to catch her, give her the release she desired, swaddle her in a warm blanket of comfort.

She would never be more than this. She didn’t know how to fix it, and to become what she used to be. She dropped her head. Her long legs trembled. Her whole posture seemed to sag, weighed down by the cosmos that she carried upon her sloping curves. For the first time in her life, she had finally surrendered.

“Please, gods,” she murmured, voice broken, with no energy to plead or beg left in her, “I know you’re out there. I know you can hear me. Others have told me of your power. But I ask not of great treasure, nor gifts, nor magic. I simply ask for your final guidance. I ask for you to collect me, so I may find my place among the stars again.” She lifted her head then, turning it skyward, though the trees still managed to obscure the heavens. Would they capture her prayer, so not even the gods would know where to find her? Was she lost to them, too? “If that is too much, if I am too little in your eyes to deserve sanctuary or paradise, I simply ask that you watch over those who I neglected and have forgotten. I can do no more for them. I pray they forget my name. I just, I don’t know…” She trailed off then, the tears getting the best of her.

She staggered forward, coming precariously close to the edge. The old Ki’irha never would have considered this as an answer. She was always proud, headstrong, resilient. But this girl, she was not Ki’irha. She did not know who she was, or what she was meant for. She only knew the repeated sound of disappointment from those who knew her before. She could not bear to do it again.

This Ki’irha had reached her end. She was ready for it to be over. This was finite and wrong and everything she couldn’t handle, but she just couldn’t think of another way. She stood on the edge of forever, wanting to step forward. A bit of her still smoldered, a small piece that tried to gather all of the courage it could muster, the last bit of spirit left within her tried to stoke the flame. ’Don’t do this,’ it whispered.

Sometimes things were just too broken to fix. And as she hesitated, willing herself forward, feeling the mist of the falls spray against her coat, hearing her name whispered within the crashing of the falls, a single blue ear twisted, capturing the sound of the world calling out to her, asking her gently to stay.

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@Lena ~