What madness had swept through this population?

…Branding hearts once so supple; so tender, with the cold hardness of stone. Minds that had strength enough to pillar entire herds were shrivelling with sickness and sorrow, decrepit shades of bitter denial, hopelessness- a far cry from their former glory. Creatures who for years had radiated confidence and resolution, were questioning their ability; their integrity and loyalty. Change had swept bitterly cleansing winds through Helovia, even before this darkness; this plague… Friends and family; mentors and legends, all perspective had been skewed so terribly, and it seemed that heartache remained the greatest consequence. None had been spared by the turn of time’s natural evolution.

Midas didn’t shy from her kindly, comforting advance. Innocence iced her intentions, and while she lingered she could not help but wonder what horrors would unfold upon them all next. Experience whispered cruelly through her mind, promising that the worst was yet to descend- that even the suffering they had seen would be magnified. When Africa had been taken by the Unicorns of the Basin, she had felt overwhelmingly that fate lurked in the shadow of her step; that the hungry appetites of those horrible monsters would see swiftly to her end- just like they had Sinhue. Perhaps that would have been simpler actually…
Instead, as though the choking responsibility of her herd-sister’s death had not been torture enough, Alan had crushed the brittle structure of her wings to imprison her; to cage that which should stay flighted and free. The meekest of spirits had been taken prisoner in the unkindest fashion imaginable.

She could not help the stirring of painful memories (not even the worst), and when finally creamy eyes were shed of their cover, a glassy stain had been set across their shining surface.

Violent guilt twisted her stomach then, and her face was pulled from his grim warmth rapidly. How could she be so vile, standing there right then, propping one so fragile with naught but the very legs of treason and corruption themselves. A low hum; a sound fraught with fault, but so desperate to comfort rumbled through clenched teeth after he spoke again. Cursed with scarring and disability- “a fair price to pay…” she had admitted to her Lord. Africa could hardly believe she had been so arrogant, pulling Midas’ anguish into the open. What right had she to pretend her worth, her reason to nurture those ailing among his herd? She was a blight in their middle; cancer. She could not forgive herself.

Silas stirred the second his beloved withdrew- she was frail he knew, and always he feared the day which would unearth all those buried memories and regrets. He had been there to bind back together the fragments of her soul; piece by piece, restoring a pitch of sanity which would at least see her web back into mainstream life and her home. It had taken months of rehabilitation, wielding amnesia like a weapon; re-writing the structure of a personality he had known for barely a season. The work had been painstaking but worthwhile, and each day that passed them by in that cave; every moment now that she was able to climb beyond those blemishes marring mind and soul, was a success- a gift. An unsettled murmur slipped through tiny nares, and sharp violet eyes shifted to examine the fresh tension rippling lines beneath the veil of her silky cloak.

‘Not now…’

A lonely wing’s splay of mottled feathering ruffled with discontent beneath its cover, restlessness moving through the corpse upon which it was clasped, like famine through the desert. Her eyes which had reflected so earnestly care and empathy began to glaze with reserve, and the skin surrounding prickled and flushed with unhinged culpability. The web of lies would unravel eventually; she felt weight like never before, crippling her; rampaging like a swollen river through her body- and just as furious. She did not feel loneliness- Africa felt the icy hand of alienation wrap around her throat. It was a feeling entirely different. Lean legs motioned backwards clumsily, though with not the purpose to abandon him like those of his true kin. They trembled with fear and trepidation, drawing away from him the threat of her harmful existence; as though any second to come would see him stricken by the manifestation of her so well (until now maybe) concealed dishonesty.

Suddenly she was craving isolation; for the cave to open beneath and swallow her away into oblivion.

The whisper of experience was right; she was the worst to come…

Africa