She is better than most at reading me. I think that makes it harder to accept that I habe taken her, because I've found that it is those who have empathy and creativity that I can communicate easily with. It is those exact same horses that least deserve the shadow-laced knife of my talents and the cruelty of this world. I suppose to some extent everyone always needs a bit of unkindness though, if only so that they can overcome it and grow stronger from it - it helps remind you too of what actual happiness is.

Peace, I didn't think it is possible, and more and more I'm thinking I didn't even want it.

"War" she confirmed, and I nod, though she doesn't need my affirmation. It's all around us, more plain than my artwork. She goes on, and I listen, genuinely surprised at what she had to say. Of course, this is her version, and I have learned many times over that the same story can be told very different ways depending on who is speaking. What is she not saying, not sharing, not even privy to in her own land? What would the Falls say in response to these same scenarios, these old events that lay like scars upon their friendship? Each would paint themselves in the better light, it is simply the nature of the individual.

The murders. An ear twitches in response, tipped towards her. My head tilts, lips growing thinner and taut with thought. I recall the murders. I had been present, but not enough to be affected. All the deaths and all the gods have never cast a ripple in my life - I rather like it that way, even if it feels, lonely. Loneliness is not always the worst thing out there.

She finishes, with a serious note that ought to have chilled me, but I only stand there before her, a scrawny boy in a large world. "My home" I think, echoing her voice in my mind. Is this my home? I glance back, dark gaze peering over my shoulder into the blackness that screams and tears itself apart. I turn back, but turn my attention to the grass at my hooves. I shuffle my feet faintly, examining the grasses. I wonder, what makes a home? Is it the yells of my herdmates back there, the very ones I abandoned to save myself? Or is it the land here he live, this spongy, maze-like path of grass and rock where I graze on the daily?

I sigh slowly, then look up at Lena once more. She says they are fighting, because of the Moon Goddess (because she murdered all those horses). I can't help but wonder how this isn't worse than that, how is is they can justify this violence as an answer to violence. I think that they just didn't like their grazing ground.

I wonder what Lena's home is like.

I walk towards her, extending my muzzle like a hand offered for someone who is knocked on the ground. She doesn't have to accept my touch, but the gesture is still there, a meaning written in the lines of my face. I wait for a moment. to see if she'll accept it or not, but then I begin to walk off. Back the way I had seen her coming, back away from these lands which are supposedly my home. I pause after a couple strides, glancing back to be sure she is coming, or not coming if she chooses. I wonder though, what is her home like? Is it better than this, because I like her, but I also like grass.

Will she like me, after all of this? Will she understand me?
How pointless it all is.