Ryuu

There is no answer to silent prayers I don't recall making. In the back of my mind, I'm aware that I was only hoping for an end to the loneliness clinging to my nubile body. Now, I begin to wish that I had taken Illy with me. But I still hold to my previous awareness that, had I attempted that, Cera would have immediately known where I was. Despite the suspicion in my stomach, thick like smoke, that he would have allowed me to go in his understanding nature, I couldn't risk it. It had taken more than a full day's travel to get where I was in that moment anyways, with all the rests I'd had to take due to the dilapidated condition of my hooves. So though the echoes of the wind and the calm bubbling of the magma was soothing, I was lonely. All I had to my account was the glowing spiral of flowers on the shrine I had stopped to rest against.

Sighing, I let my cheek turn, ever careful of the trio of horns upon my brow as my cheek pressed into the loose coating of rock and gravel upon the firm, warm stone. Dully staring out over the shimmering waves of heat the magma produced, wishing I knew what I was doing here. Why was I so desperate to meet the Gods? Surely I was too small, too displeasing and pathetic to warrant any kind of sympathy that could relieve my pain. In that moment, as in all moments when my self-pity became too deep and blackened, I hated the faded memory of my birth mother. It was her greed, her selfishness, that had borne me so broken and useless. It was she who doomed me to this pain, and not only was she uncaring, she had not pursued me when I wandered silently from the mists of my old home. She had let me limp away into the distance without a care, even when I was too small to fend off even a newborn rabbit.

There was a desire to cry, somewhere deep in my soul. Bitterly I mused that, perhaps I had cried out the few I had in my possession. They had to have been sparse, for I had only ever cried in my foalhood and when I had found Momma upon the beach. I don't remember what happened after that thought, perhaps I dozed, though my eyes were half-mast continuously. Instead, what awakens me is the odd sound of shifting clouds and clatter of hooves upon stone. A ripple goes through my blackened hide, barely discernible upon the similarly colored rock. Were it not for the bright colors struck upon my shoulder and hindquarter, I likely would never have been detected.

But I am.

Fate leads me true, and Lady Luck seemed to be hoping to come back into my graces after all she'd raised me into. She had led me from the mists of the Edge, had directed me to Momma's side. And now, she returns to me my sire, of whom I had only met once. His voice is recognizable not out of repeat submission to my aurals, but because I have so few on my list of known souls. It's my name, after all. I lift my eyes with quiet reluctance, fearing I am dreaming after all. Blink dual painted eyes at the similarly colored stallion standing away from me.

"Father?" my voice trembles, not used to being called upon. Silence is my friend, and in him I find comfort and protection. In him, I find myself unnoticed, and therefore unharmed. I am nearly mute, no matter how hard Momma attempts to get me to speak. Words, after all, are the cruelest of inventions. They are a lie of nature, deceitful things meant only to lure others in and slice them apart with the barbs hidden on each syllable.

@[Voodoo]

leave me your stardust to remember you by