Silas sat chest deep in the cool, rich green foliage of the strawberry patch he had found during one foraging trip alone, a few days before. The fruit growing were scarcely red, still quite tart, though he gobbled them all with ravenous delight and little regard for the hungry birds balanced in the meshed branches overhead; watching with bowed heads, dismay dulling their shining gaze. When a shadow passed across them all, lilac eyes shot towards the sky and they widened when they found the radiant fire glow of Fina- she was not difficult to spot in general, but this occasion, he felt, was not simply a patrol. Eyes still set upon the Phoenix, he called without noise to his bonded, Midas has need for you...

Ears tipped forward as the message slipped suddenly through her thoughts. Africa had been dozing beneath the shadow of the mountain, respite that had been seldom achieved in more recent times. She sprang with haste from the courtyard outside the cells, hooves clattering as she ascended the weaving trail she had come by then to appreciate – where rock sank or root curled beneath the rich valley soil, there was less chance of slipping and she sought such with each lunge along the way. Silas glided just beyond, one keen violet eye attracted by the fireball above, and hidden ears listening carefully to the stride of the mare travelling below.

They travelled right to the borderline; the narrow cliff-face path which wove precariously beneath cascading torrents of water, slick with moss and algae, both of which appealed little to the naturally clumsy grey mare. Instead she transformed into the form of a stocky grey parrot and trailed the swifter zephyrs right over the rocky peak to the other side. As she descended, there lay a creature she had not ever expected to set eyes upon again. Hastily she landed by them, Midas and the mare, hooves staggering forth before even the rest of her slim build had fully morphed back into a horse.

“Goddess... Confutatis...” she cried softly, falling across sooty knees by the familiar mare’s shoulder. The other had claimed demurely not be such a deity at the time, but Africa still remembered so vividly that dream, the conversation, a warning that darkness would devour what would not fight it... She was yet to learn of the macabre rumours circulating. "Pray, are you hurt? Where have you come from?” Voice rattled with concern as tender lips roamed shamelessly across the horribly visible mountain of ribs towards hips even more pointed than her own. Gentle eyes surveyed the fallen creature with rising sadness; the dark lady was barely recognizable – though the shadows in the cave had obscured her well enough during their last meeting.

Africa lifted again, distress etched through her expression, and she neared Confutatis’ gaunt, ugly face – it had not always been so, unpleasant. The putrid stench of decay filled her fluttering nostrils and the one-winged gagged and pulled again away. "What happened Midas? Do you know what is wrong with her?” Her gaze searched his dark features hopefully, tracing the golden markings which fell from each eye and a weak, thoughtful smile pulled away the grimace which had been. Wincing, she stole another glance; one more attempt to find sign of the injury that was causing such a nauseating reek. She was yet to draw healing vines from this sacred soil of their land’s patron, but grim desperation and bursting empathy began to lure tiny earth-caked sprouts out from beneath their snow-covered bed beneath the World Eater.

You were right, Confutatis... what you told me,

I...

I should have listened!

The World Eater had been more than right. It was as though she had foreseen the one-winged mare’s future, witnessed her past. Africa trembled as the dusty Goddess (all-knowing and imperishable), laid tattered and torn, wet and wretched - but alive in her metaphorical lap. If only she had heeded the warning; perhaps this disease, this inability to cope with life’s perpetual sea of turbulence might never have become her reality – but this was not the time to mourn lost opportunity, and as the putrid stench began to fade around them all, she found courage enough to step out from the security of the mighty Czar’s nearness again.

‘What is broken, can sometimes fly again,’ she remembered fondly, with conviction...

But those wise words once imparted by the Gallant had been warm, doting, even fatherly (golden evidence rattled together, woven back amid her mane); the tone of his voice this time was stern, tentative, everything she had not at all expected. Even before her flaming nape had unfurled in full or twitching, troubled lips had found their fallen quarry, she turned to find a stranger’s hardened gaze, depthless, chilling. "In...

She was in The Sanctuary...."

Pale, eyes dulled behind growing confusion and the Starry-Eyed dithered between her resolve to aid the wounded, crippled Goddess, and her deep-rooted confidence in the stallion who had taken her beneath his benevolent wing, time and time again. The Basin, Confutatis had mentioned just before (Africa knew of Illynx and her ‘machines’ as a result of loose lips in the Threshold), and the dappled mare felt the sting of rising memories, pain and suffering, remorseless torture. The bright pink scarring across her left shoulder seemed to burn again with renewed potency as though it were only yesterday that the glorious wing had been severed from its socket. Still, she was torn in two. Legs stiffened beneath her swaying, sleek barrel and anxiously she glanced between the pair.

It was not her magic to wield.

"Midas...." she whispered, eyes glazing as she tethered bravely her grief. "Why do you ask?" Why did her stomach turn with foreboding? Why was the World Eater’s failing health not his primary concern? The tiny green sprouts began to shrink back towards their clay bed beneath.

Silvery, sullied, tendrils which once captured so delicately the phosphorous hue of the underground garden, lashed forward to frame the strangely masked face of the mare. She pleaded as she heaved the beaten remnants of (surely) a once gloriously youthful bodice into the air, and the wretched undertone made the Starry-Eyed’s gullible gut, twist unbearably. Trembling, tender lips, soft and moist without any trace of desert dust once stained across them, danced ahead unconsciously to help steady the pitiable mare should she stagger or even fall back to her grave – it was painfully clear. If the Earth did not lend aid to her quickly, those jutting bones would certainly bare her burden no longer.

Empathetic breath leaked from tentatively-slit, velveteen nostrils as they passed brazenly by, as close as Confutatis might tolerate. The stench which had forced sickened distance between them moments before, was gone curiously, and pastel eyes examined the other’s empty, sunken stare as it drifted heaven bound from the slick slough beneath – desperate, and horribly vulnerable. She inched closer to the shrewd dream-weaver, foolish perhaps, like the lamb lulled to sleep by the jaws of a wolf; inquisitive at first, innocent and trusting. So oblivious was she, so entranced by the spell woven in the grim dark of the Sanctuary, that even her wavering ears could not find that baleful tenor which coated heavily each word.

The Gallant answered her in a cautious tone – but it was softer, reassuringly so she thought, hinting of that cherished tenderness which had etched fondness into the Starry-Eyed’s whimsical heart. He was a shrewd mind, beyond her simpleton’s desire to find only the good, and with baited breath she watched as he granted only a timeline long enough to harbour her recovery. "Yes..." She replied, the answer short, obedient, heedful of the gravity of the situation – though not understanding why it was so for even one second. She can nest with me... though Silas purred uncomfortably at her generosity, put off terribly by the almost cold reception Confutatis had been given.

There was a movement though, as the Czar questioned the Wold Eater further about the Basin, and clammy skin fluttered wildly and fearfully as she remembered the magic which had risen through her toes, crippling her soul and draining the life from her desert sister altogether - surely they won’t come? The creature who had loomed previously by the ankles of his bonded wrapped in the cold blackness of the cave, crawled from the murk and up upon the his bonded. Africa paused as he came, casting a careful eye across him; nervous and fidgety, as though her flesh had been the reason for his coming. But the beast came to rest perched atop the sick mare’s withers, and blunt teeth slipped forward just clear of his reach, to pull the tattered forelock from the World Eater's eyes.

"Goddess..." she whispered, voice laden with gratuitous kindness; a merciful embrace that saw naught but the need. "Let the Earth mend your wounds, please." Long lashes fastened tightly together as she called back the sprouts from their soil bed below and they lifted without question, curling to life as she beckoned, finding easily the legs of the emaciated horse. Coated in rich healing mud, they soon grew into vines and tangled together right across her ruined frame; a mesh, a cosy blanket, warming always as they worked. Africa hummed softly a sweet subtle tune, engrossed, and for the moment she was oblivious to any conversation that lingered beyond magic.

As she released them, Earth’s delicate fingers vanished away once more to sleep, and Africa whispered after them - "Thank you!" She was exhausted, swaying visibly before she turned jaded eyes upon Confutatis. "Can you walk," her tongue had grown lethargic, her voice but a breath quivering as it fell from her lips. "Come, please..." And she began to turn across knees that bent awkwardly beneath suddenly cumbersome weight, precariously, to guide the the Goddess along a rubble path skirting the hidden herd land; to the homely prison cell where they could sleep, that the Starry-Eyed had made as a sanctuary of her own.