It was rare that the mare slept a dreamless sleep these strange, elongated nights. Nightmares ran rampart through her, like a tornado, leaving fractured and broken ruins in their wake. She awoke restless, weary and tired, all the time, never quite remembering what it was her mind was trying to tell her as her consciousness pushed aside the foggy unconscious ruins of her mind.

Only, tonight was different. Tonight, her dreams seemed so real, palpable. She could smell the blood, the burnt flesh. She could feel the chill of ice against her limbs. She could feel her heart breaking as she stared into the lifeless eyes of her beloved friend. Wings protruded from her sides, heavy, golden, and instead of hooves, she had great, sharp, platinum claws on the end of each strong limb. Her eyes delivered the same world to her but from a slightly different perspective - she noticed different things. Suddenly, there was that chilling cold, that icy sensation running up the sides of her legs, and she was perched on top of it through the flapping of those heavy wings.

Only, she wasn't quite fast enough. Through her heart she felt the ice penetrate, through her eyes she saw the spotted hide of the wielder of such magic. With a snarl she summoned the fire that lived within her belly, and with her last breath, she hurled it at that spotted demon. Mauja, she vaguely recalled, just as the life was taken from her - just as she woke up, a cold sweat trickling down behind her ears, and Akaith purring worriedly upon her back.

Mauja.

The mare was standing - very rarely did she lay down to sleep, even with the vigil of her mate near by. Moving as subtly as a shadow, she awoke her golden daughter with a gentle caress, reluctant yet desperate to confirm what it was her mind had finally pieced together after all this time of uncertainty.
"Tell me about you trip to the Heart, little one."
"The Sun God was there. He set fire to that white girl bonded to Tinek, and he healed that spotted stallion, and then he paid attention to one of the other fillies. Then I followed Sakura to.. to.."
"Shh, I know sweety. Tell me about how he healed."
"It was with magic, mother, as if light had stepped down from the sky and up from the Heart and then danced across the burn, leaving no hint of it behind."
"How would he have gotten burnt?"
"It was dragon's fire, mother. I am sure of it."
When her daughter had first told Mirage about the presence of Mauja at the Heart, she had thought nothing of it - too fresh was the wound caused by Torasin's departure. She recalled now, how she had shushed her daughter then, how she had assumed that the burn would have been caused by nothing more than the Heart itself.

But it all made sense now.

Mauja was the murderer of Torasin.

With a swift farewell, the little shadow mare moved. She wasn't sure where she was going, nor what needed to be done. Her mind was awhirl with the implications of her discovery. She wasn't even sure who she could discuss this fragile information with, who could help her. She had to tell someone, but with the absence of the Gods, she could hardly confide in her patron Goddess. So, it was with some absentminded rush, that the little shadowmare was travelling at reasonable speed towards the borders of her land, a golden dragon flitting through the trees above her, her destination as yet unknown, but her mindset decided upon at least one single fact.

Mauja would pay.

@[Kri]