When the world is placed on your shoulders, what do you do?

If I knew the tale of Atlas, I would know. Unfortunately, for all of my inspired thoughts and whispers of courage, I learn just how long the land seems to stretch underneath my wings and this abyssmal sky. I finally accepted my place as the son of the Earth, but I have no idea what I am doing still. After all, in my mind, I have only been the son of the Earth for... I don't know, a few days? It is hard to keep track of time in this sunless winter.

Mother is proud of me. Father is proud of me. Ophelia has faith in me. I cannot let them all down because I do not know what to do. I must figure out something; I need to protect the world. I promised that I would. I left my home in hopes that I would immediately find a purpose. Instead, I have found and endless night, bitterly cold and just as barren of inspiration for my assigned task. How can I be hopeful when I do not even know what I am supposed to be doing?

I let out a heavy sigh and begin to circle downward, toward the faintly glowing lights of the trees below. I discovered them not long after the light of the Foothill's great waterfall had faded into night. Like lanterns, they lit well traveled paths across the otherwise pitch black land. From my vantage point in the sky, they looked like little radioactive cookie crumbs sprinkled across the night sky. The sky might well be the ground, for this is the only place I see stars.

My bronze hooves come to land on frozen winter ground, finding now forgiveness in my landing. However, as I come to stand beside the pale, glowing bark of a tree, I notice the grass at my feet beginning to buck up, coming back to the point of health and glowing green in the faint light. A barren wasteland at my hooves replaced with fresh spring grass. I smile, for I have found my answer. The only gift my father had given me to protect this earth, the ability to heal the land from which I was born.

If there is no food, the outcasts of the land would die before the end of the season. I would ensure that none of this occurred by providing them with relief. We were one in the same now - outcasts, that is. Lowering my head, I begin to graze upon the soft, resurrected grasses below me.