Zahra, Ilham, and Hanna

It was pride that turned angels into devils

Zahra was cold to the bone, empty…

Numb.

Not a thought reeled through her mind, not a hint of remorse danced through the hollow trance of her gaze. There was just nothing.

Shock, confusion, fatigue…

She strode from the scene without even a tear to warm or mellow the glassy, vacant stain in her eyes. Turning for a moment, the tiny filly traced the dark outline of death - that poor mare, fallen - she would never wake up. The notion was both horribly sad and pitifully permanent. Pristine white lashes fluttered hesitantly before lids drew like dark curtains across the morbid scene for the final time. She barely noticed the golden stallion, lingering (or leaving, whatever necessary feat he thought next should happen); he didn’t matter, she didn't - none of this did. It was all a matter of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, obviously.

Thin, wobbly legs began again to travel, gliding carefully above the rough, muddy terrain until snow again turned the path south, a foul shade of white. Zahra had never been a fan of snow, of cold weather, and she wondered how on earth she’d come so far without any desire to retreat back to… well, she wasn’t really even sure where she was headed now. She paused for a moment, shivering, teeth chattering, and dipped her small inky lips to brush the thick ashen coat of her sister. ‘Where were we going? I can’t remember,’ she hummed with a soft, tender smile, but the Kitsune returned no reply to the innocent pondering of her older sibling, and instead pressed warmth against the filly’s bony black foreleg; for the moment she placed the old leather bag they had taken at the dying mare’s wish upon the ground.

She shrugged gently and continued on towards a ridge of what could only be described as teeth, tips glinting like crystal in the sunlight.

Zahra couldn’t remember exactly when her parents had passed - long enough at least for her to have found relative peace with concept. She often thought of them, though her mother seemed only to be a dim blur beside the gallant vision of her kingly father. They were laid together at rest in a golden tomb just east of the Threshold, but she was reluctant to visit; a fierce sense of foreboding warned her away from such thinking. A herd dwelled in a lush region of swollen waterfalls and rolling grass knolls there, and somehow she remembered them to be a vain and immoral group of mercenaries who thought only as far as their own pride - which she gathered too, was not something terribly respectable. It was they who kept the child’s curiosity at bay.

But she wasn’t alone in the world. Bird, her sister, was perhaps the greatest gift bestowed by her loving parents (aside from the beautiful memories she otherwise clung to), and for as long as Zahra could remember they had never been apart.

The ageing afternoon was warm despite the bitter wind howling down from the cloud encased, jagged mountains still farther north (a wilderness she was certain not to explore any time soon), and though her young coat was still unfortunately thin and soaked wet to the skin, the sun’s delicious rays spilled down upon the darkest stretch of her canvas like the thick feathered embrace of her father’s white wing. An eye turned briefly up toward the heavens found a sky bluer than ever had been witnessed before and each wing flanking her lean barrel shook stiffly. Though she longed to learn to fly, the filly knew well that her beloved sister had not the capacity and she spoke seldom of that desire.

’I've always wanted to see these…’ Zahra hummed quietly and genuinely, distracting that pattern of thought as they descended at last upon the coastal ice-formations - they were undeniably impressive, but not at all something she would normally be drawn to. In truth, there had only been one occasion previously that she had passed by the area - she of course, was blissfully unaware. Bird flanked in silence, intrigued by the giant landmarks, but paused as her sister did abruptly, to scan the unfamiliar area first; sharp milk-teeth tightened around the bag in their grasp. The sisters were each exhausted, as weary as one might be after covering half the length of Helovia in a week without respite - drawn as though emotions had frayed and fractured their minds. Neither had occurred though, and the golden child put it down to the shifting season around them; she had seen Orangemoon wither away leaves and chill the balmy air many months ago, after all.

They dabbled about into the evening, half-heartedly searching for a safe enough place to rest their heads. A series of caves dotted a rugged mountainside and it was to these they eventually gravitated - a place out of the elements, where perhaps the ravenous hunt of a predator might not find them. As the light began to wane, Zahra lead towards one entrance that seemed to be set aside from the others, her quivering nose sank to scent the slush across the doorway and she was startled to find that another’s presence lay thick upon it. There was a murmur from within, a voice, and the filly whispered tentatively without daring too close, “is someone there…?” Suddenly a scream rose from the depths and the siblings both leapt from the caves’s mouth in fright. A reckless glance thrown back over her shoulder discovered a faint glow within however, and it caused the foal’s legs to stagger and still.