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Tinek had stayed far from the winds as they began to spiral, honing on on the center of the rift, but one figure remained adrift. A white owl with blue markings.
Mauja.
Ophelia tore her gaze from the insanity that roared around her ears and tore through the fibers of her mane, trying to find the spotted stallion as she squinted against biting winds. The intensity of the plumes brought tears to her eyes, at least that is what she told herself as the salty liquid streaked down the delicate planes of her face. Even as she wanted to run to his side, she was rooted to the earth, her cloven toes splayed as she braced against the forces that waged around her.
Slowly, her gaze returned to what was in front of her until each god disappeared into the void, leaving them alone. What can create can also take away. He was running, and she could not move, could not will her limbs to detach from the ground in which she was rooted so firmly.
What if she became weightless? What if she drowned in the sky? Or burned in the darkness? What madness would follow that she would have to face? What was it like to live during the final days of the world? But as long as her hooves were still touching the ground, as long as she was still breathing the same air, as long as she was still touching something... she was alive. Somehow, in some way, she was alive.
Was she still breathing? She could not hear the air move past her lungs, could barely feel the air move down her throat. Until silence fell and the world became a deafening noise of her own body. Heart thrummed in her ears, lungs gasped as they expanded, hair rustled so loudly against her fur, and she could still hear a ringing of the wind that had died.
Mauja yelled her name.
Ophelia cringed, ears tilting away from the power of his voice that echoed in the absence of the howling winds. She blinked more tears from her eyes, still stuck to the ground, unable to move and breathing fast. Had she told Tinek that it was the end of the world? Was that the sound of her voice? Ophelia had only ever once been so entirely shaken, and she had run from that world when she was so young, carrying her sister's weight across foreign lands, falling, failing and getting up again. The shades had come in the dark, but there was always a dawn. Always...
When his soft muzzle pressed against her neck, she leaned into his touch, appreciating that he continued to ground her into this reality, safe from the danger of her memories and into the present catastrophe. Ophelia inhaled a hitching breath, trying to pull her eyes from where the rift had been only moments before. "I... do not understand," she murmured. "Are we supposed to survive this? Are we supposed to wait?" she asked, knowing that Mauja did not know the answers either.
Even though the God of the Sun had turned her away and tossed her from his presence with fire, Ophelia knew that he was necessary, and even in her loathing, she knew that they needed the sun. Would everything die? "I thought that this would only be a dream..." she murmured, finally lowering her gaze to the blackness of the grass beneath her hooves.
A scream caused her to start, and she snorted, gray nostrils quivering as her eyes widened, straining to see in the dark. She shifted closer to Mauja, neck lifted proudly and arched on her high withers, fibers of her tail still and pooling around her hind hooves. Two, pearly auds tilted forward upon her brow as she heard crashing following the scream until the sounds faded into nothingness again. What haunted the dark spaces?
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