Young murderer walks the shore with blood still strung delicately between his feathers. His ears are keen and his senses sharp; he can hear it snap and pop, smell it still as it rises from his powerful young form. The form of a killer, one who hunts and feasts on still warm flesh. One who killed an innocent mother, snapped her neck and watched her fall with no feeling in his heart. He is a monster, he begins to realize. He can no longer care.

Manhattan is gone yet she still remains, walking beside him as if they are not apart. But her mind is gone now, no longer a part of his, and he feels the emptiness rise. Cold he once assumed was from Frostfall fills him, but now Birdsong falls upon the earth and he sees that it is from his own heart. It has always been from his heart. His eyes shine blue in the bright light reflecting off the sea and he feels naked in the open light. The beach is strange and unfamiliar, exposed and uncomfortable. At his side, the young Manhattan pants and whines as the heat and fullness from her last meal slows her pace. The frozen emptiness quickens his pace but he does not leave her behind. She walks faster, even when she longs to stop.

He no longer possesses the ability to tell what she feels and understand her desires. When weeks ago he would have rested beside her in the cool waters, now he walks. He walks seemingly forever, seeking absolution perhaps, seeking purpose more likely. An understanding of the way things are and why he is not a part of them is all he desires, if he desires even that. Emotion fails him now, just as it always has. The sun blinds him and the heat draws from him his strength, but he cannot find it in himself to care.

As his body falls softly into the sand and water sweeps across bloodied hooves to hide the evidence of a hunt, he longs for darkness. Manhattan's fur brushes against his hindquarters, and the faint rustle of sand betrays her motion as she curls up to lie beside him. But he does not feel her, not anymore. He wants nothing more than for this treacherous light to leave, for the sounds of the waves and gulls to lie alone in the harbor and fill his senses.

Slowly, the world disappears around him. His eyes turn silver, and for a time there is nothing.