I couldn't speak. I couldn't eat or sleep and my legs felt a need to give away under my ashen body. My entire mind and body was plagued with the idea that I was a complete and utter failure. I was not good enough and I never would be. I wasn't able to protect the herd like I should've been.

My hooves fumbled over the ground, mahogany eyes filled with an eerie sense of emptiness. Although I knew where the wolf and his reptilian friend were taking me, and my hooves had travelled this way many times in my adventures around Helovia, I continued to stumble blindly and walk without a purpose. It's not as if I had one. I was now a prisoner, to both the wolf and my own thoughts. No matter what I tried to focus on, my mind always went back to thinking of my lack of a favorable outcome for my home.

Maybe, just maybe, that was not the case. With such an excuse of a lead as Jackal the King of Cowards, who had failed to help protect his family. Perhaps a change in lead would be good for the earthen land I had come to call home. Within no time at all it seemed we had reached the place again. I allowed myself to close my eyes for a mere seconds, thinking of all the many places I had sulked and explored that I would probably never get to go to again.

At this, a frown creases my face and I open my eyes once more. I smelled blood mixed with the smell of water and fresh grass. I look around the wolf and the other dogs surrounding me to see a few fallen figures of my former herd mates along with plenty of new faces. They must be the Grey. A mare with a white bodice and hair dipped a color like blood stood regally. She carried herself as if she was a leader, so I could only guess that she was the leader of the Grey who had no doubt taken the Foothills over now.

I watch Osiris lower his head, which I found quiet odd. I never knew a wolf could show such emotion, even if only in a small amount as this. My ears flick back, eyes searching to look at anything but my fallen family and the swarm of newcomers who had taken my home. Even as the wolf talks to me, I do not look at him. I lower my head to the ground, brushing my maw against the grass I had fallen in love with when Ricochet first brought me here from the Threshold. I knew I had a quest to finish, but I wanted to stay in this beautiful land. Perhaps I could do both.

"Thank you," I begin, finally gathering up enough beaten courage in myself to look up to Osiris, pausing a moment before my lips spill more words. "The Foothills is my home, Osiris. I would find it quite pleasurable to live here, but my needs within a herd are quite specific at the moment. If I could talk with this Ophelia you speak of, then that would be magnificent." I curve my mouth into a weak smile, something I felt as if I hadn't done in a very, very long time.

Talk Talk

The night's on fire