Blue fish swam through the waters of the sky. Their dotted, white tails flicked in the wind, their bodies rising and falling as one. They swam for miles and miles and miles. They swam over clouds and past streams. They swam in the shine of the afternoon sun, so that a dark school followed far below. They swam beyond the beating ring of fire and above the roaring dragon. They swam and swam and swam.

By the time the blue fish stopped swimming, the stars were out and whispered for them to rest. They swooped in together with a soft, whistling noise, brushing across Jaydan's back as his hooves fumbled with purchase on the ground beneath.

He stumbled, side swiping a tree and painting it red before clattering to his side with a spray of dead leaves and dry dirt. For a moment the jay was silent, the fish shimmering anxiously against his side with each shaky breath he pulled in. On a particular exhale there arose a peculiar, terrible noise; a deep-chested, groaning note of despair and pain. Pain that had long since bloomed in his heart and now, freshly blossomed on his torn shoulder, which dirt so kindly packed with a dressing of shit and worms and Earth God knows what else. Yet rather than rise from the undignified position, rather than assess his wound and clean it properly, the jay remained.

He shut his eyes, imagining in some small, childish way it would shut out the world and all its hurt, tangible or not. When it didn't, he began to shake. At first sight it might look like he was rocking, as one may to comfort themselves, but this was not the case. Jaydan, a once proud and noble warrior, was trembling because sobs too large to produce sound were filling his chest and choking themselves from his lungs only when they nearly burst. Saline spun dark trails down his cheeks and mucus dribbled in the flared channels of his dirt-smudged nose.

If he waited long enough, maybe the worms would eat him, and then he wouldn't feel so much pain any more. Is this the Moon God's quest then? It seemed good enough, so he remained, and he cried, and little by little, he started to die - as we all do.

Jaydan wondered miserably if closing his eyes would help the matter. He thought perhaps it might make time slip by faster, being unable to see the dirt staring back at him and the leaves sighing on the trees. Then again the dark was achingly lonely, and that blank stretch of nothingness behind his eyes was too great an invitation for unwelcome memories to dance into. Still, the dead always had their eyes closed didn't they? Could you die if they were open? Was that what blinking was all about, offering intervals for demise to occur?

With nothing better to do, Jaydan settled into the dark of his mind as his eyes closed off the world.

Long from then, or so it felt stumbling through the black, a soft whuff and a tickle of whiskers had the jay rousing himself from the recesses of his conscious. Squirming at first, resisting the call to return, to see, Jaydan's lashes eventually fluttered up. He had been hoping in that time where forever and a second felt the same that he'd be transcended to the next pasture. He hoped that the touch he felt brushing past him like butterfly wings on flower petals was Luin's gentle hands cradling his nose. The whiskers he felt naught but her hair drifting in a pleasant breeze. He could nearly smell the apples...

What he found however, was a fox face. It was such a different image than what he had conjured it startled him so largely that his head jerked and a muscle twinged in his neck, causing him to cry out in fresh pain. His legs stiffened, as if rigor mortis swiftly descended, and he flopped heavily back into the dirt with a sound of finality. He thought he'd been final about it before, but that noise certainly seemed to suggest he simply was not getting up.

Stretched out sideways on the ground, his neck throbbing like a dull, angry heartbeat, Jaydan stared pointedly at the vixen. Flopping like a landed fish, Jaydan's tongue attempted to cooperate with his lips and produce something akin to speech. Before he managed this terribly difficult dance of the mouth however, another touch passed him, this one accompanied by a voice.

Blue eyes rolled in their sockets as the pegasus tried to glance at the speaker. Once more seized in surprise his body had stiffened, though he had the sense not to flail his knotted neck this time. Though it took a moment, he eventually registered just what the mare had said - he was still mystified that she'd said anything at all. "You fox?" He asked dreamily, disregarding her questions as he frankly didn't remember what they were. He was lucky he knew the word for fox, having been familiar with them in his homeland he'd learned their name in many words.

The vixen had fled, but he did not remember this occurrence. It seemed much more likely that the mare with the question mark on her face had once been the fox. Perhaps she was the pasture guardian? Yet Jaydan could still see the forest plainly around him. He didn't really know how dying worked though - were you destined to roam where you passed? Was this his final resting point, a haunting trove of trees?

He supposed it was more suiting than the red hallways of the Throat, though this forest barely compared to Salka.
Salka.
If he was to stay in this forest, was Luin then in Salka forever? Could he fly back there as he had flown away from it in morality?

So many questions and fox mare was not being forth coming. In fact she chuckled. Jaydan didn't really think anything about this was funny. Maybe it's a type of humor you learn when dying.

She suggested he stand but he didn't much agree with it. He glanced back at her, blue eyes pooling in the corners of his skull as he watched her. "Is nice," he replied simply to her assumption. To be rather honest Jaydan much liked the ground now that he was on it. Yes, he could decompose nicely here. He'd already tried dying in the air once and that hadn't gone over very well.

"Fox guardian," he began, his tones nearly pleading, willing to understand. "Dying, how work?"

You'll get nowhere lying on the ground.

Nowehere, here, there, anywhere, what does it matter? The ground is nice. The Fox Guardian is nice. Where does she suppose he's trying to get to anyway? He wondered dreamily if she would tell him if he asked.
To luin. To the last pasture.
He sighed as though accepting the need to rise were the hardest thing he'd ever done. If the Fox would not let him see Luin until he was standing then he supposed the least he could do was stand.

Grunting in discomfort, his neck still a dull ache, Jaydan unceremoniously made it back to his feet. Blood and dirt were caked along his side but he made no move to shake the grime from his coat. He simply stood, head low and eyes nearly glazed, swaying as though to some internal melody.

The change in position led to a change in scenery and ultimately perspective. It seemed enough to wake him from his warped slumber. Blue eyes were clearer now as they turned upon the mare, ears flicking back and forth anxiously. "Living un-uuuuun-lesant" he remarked, his lips fumbling over the word she'd used, one unfamiliar to him in speaking. He shifted his wings like a shrug as a mild sigh drifted from his nose in defeat. "None left." And for him he truly felt that nothing was.

She didn't understand. It brought a deep frown of concern to his face. Why did no one understand? Perhaps none of them had been lucky enough to experience the death of their soul.

"She died." he said simply. What else was there really to say? It was so much more than that in truth, because it wasn't just that Luin was gone, everything he had ever known, everyone he'd ever loved, was gone too. To pour salt on the wound they had failed.

He could have at least trudged through the misery of loneliness while the bodies of his family and friends scattered around them in there had been honor or victory. Yet Salka had burned and their enemies overran the surrounding area. Everything had been for naught.

I do not deserve to be alive...

A deep sadness overwhelmed the stallion. With an anguished cry he spread his wings and tore into the sky, leaving the questioning mare and her failure to grasp his condition far far behind him. This life was not one meant for him any more, this is what the fading of dreaming and reality meant. He was being pulled into death, because he was never supposed to survive.

[He is too crazy to hold conversation xP also his muse eats me]