They were finally together, finally reunited, finally pieced together, as if the cosmos had finally decided that their sins had been repaid, and they could resume their life as a family. Finally, fatefully, perfectly, Ki’irha was home.

It had taken her so many years to learn that home was more than where you slept and where you lived. Home was where family was. Home was safety, and warmth, and love. She had known two homes. The first had been the Aurora Basin. Her great northern home had left her breathless with it’s beauty. She was a wolf, her herd was her back, and she had been built for the ruthless chilling nature that kept the herd thriving. She had known love with Ashamin, she had known loyalty serving beneath Deimos, beneath Thranduil and Hotaru, she had found family and comraderie in Mortuus Nox, in Rikyn, in Sialia, in Erebos, in so many faces and names. The ice ran through her veins, the sloping valley matched her curves, the mountainous rock lived within her hooves, and the starlit sky painted her frame. She was the Aurora Basin, and the Aurora Basin was she. And her second home, the only thing strong enough, powerful enough, to drag her away from that first home, stood beside her. Her beautiful daughter, kissed by the galaxies and carved from night, had accepted her back. There was a long way to go, but this was half of the battle. And Mesec, pieced together by moonlight and starless night, her prince, the one threatening to push her dangerously close to love, walked beside her. It was perfect. It was home. She had no where else she’d rather be. Helovia was her home, every corner, every inch, every unclimbed mountain and every untouched valley called to her, promised her adventure, promised her life. She could never imagine leaving. She could never imagine finding anything anywhere else.

Fate had a funny way of dealing a winning hand, no matter where you hid your aces.

They felt themselves pulled, ushered towards the slaughterhouse like lambs, and as they approached the pinnacle of devastation like ants to their hill, she knew with every approaching step that something was happening. Something terrible. Her midnight coat quivers, her nerves went alight, her steps were high and she danced with nerves, nostrils flared. And then, it happened.

Mares, stallions, children were being yanked from their places on the earth, twisted by blinding light, destroyed in a violent shadowed end. Her ears pinned, silver eyes wide, and her breath was ripped from her, but not before she exhaled a name. ”Virga.” Her son was gone, missing, separated. What would they do? She needed to find him, push him. But as more were destroyed, (her heart ached as Sohalia, the beautiful woman who crafted her sparkling comb, disappeared into bloodied smoke), she knew she would never find him in time. There was nothing she could do for him, but everything she could do for Mesec, for Vesper. She sidestepped, brushing her nose against Mesec, and sidled towards her daughter, brushing her shoulder against Vesper’s. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, eyes closing, but not before she cast her gaze once one more time upon her first born.  

She would not stand. She would not wait, would not cower, would not flee. Upon graceful legs she stepped forward, her chest out, crown held high. She would be unsuccessful. She would fall. But she would not fail. She would join Sialia, who she had served so gracefully beside during her time as a corporal, and they would go into final battle together. She would help distract Kaos just long enough for Mesec and Vesper to flee. But before she could brazenly, stupidly, charge towards them, she watched her battle sister slain. “No!” she screamed, and she knew, then, that it was over. There was no distracting him. He was everything and nothing, he was consuming, he was devastating.

Her screams were matched by Mesec as he screamed out for Sacre. She fell back, eyes frantic, body quivering. “Mesec, Mesec, what do we do? We need to go, we need to leave.” She tried to pull herself away, felt as though she were wading through chest deep water, and she gently tried to shove Vesper, and clamped teeth against strands of Mesec’s mane and pulled. “We need to move,” she cried, desperate, helpless, and the world continued to crash down around them.

The gods came, but the starlit girl had no hope. It was over. So undoubtedly over. But still they fought valiantly, and as the portal began to twist and churn, each god made their sacrifice. But it wasn’t over. It would never be over. Mesec screamed for his mother, and though she didn’t know, though she couldn’t possibly know, his moonlit edges, his crown and his wings, his very being should have betrayed his lineage. She knew demigods walked among them, but Mesec? The father of her children? It suddenly made sense, hearing Vesper cry to Grandmother Moon, and her heart shattered for her family.

But she was a wolf. She was fearless and dauntless and strong and sharp. They did not need a doting careful gentle thing. They needed a wolf. Mesec tried to speak, to stay supportive, but there was no time. She pinned her ears, turned her teeth against him. “Just go!” she growled, landing a light bite against him, pushing against him. A voice rang out, and there was Rikyn, shoving others into the portal, and for once she knew he was right. She looked to catch his eye, fire burning wildly within her like their last meeting, and she followed his suit. Before she could give him more encouragement, Mesec was gone, vanishing, and tears burned her eyes, and her heart broke into smaller pieces than she could ever imagine. She turned to Vesper, knew she was broken, knew she had seen her grandmother ripped from the sky. How would she ever try to piece her broken daughter back together? None of that mattered if they didn’t get the fuck out of here, so she reached. “Vesper, go! We need you. Things cannot be changed. We need to move.” She pushed, yelled, encouraged, would go so far as to drag her child into the portal should that be necessary. Everything was a blur, and she could barely tell what she was doing as everything came collapsing in.

Soon, she herself was being pulled by the steep gravitational shift, a star being dragged into a black hole, and as she cast one last look at the devastation, at the bodies, at the bloodshed, she sobbed, she cried, she screamed. Her hooves fought to find purchase upon the ground, and she cast her eyes to the north, searched for one last glimpse of the mountains she had always loved. She screamed for Virga, knowing it would be fruitless. She watched some flee through the portal, and as she fell back, felt the edges of her consciousness fall apart, her silver eyes closed.

It was over. Her fight here was finished.

Helovia was gone.