Ashamin

Ashamin had settled upon an idea: he was going to travel.

There was nothing like a journey away from home, a home that had been found after fleeing the first one, to forget one's troubles. The haruspex had found that he was quickly growing burdened with new responsibilities and old mourning rites. Even now, so far from home, he remembered the traditions his father had taught him. Asha had died; thus Ashamin had been dressed in the appropriate garb, fed the appropriate slim meals, taught to recite the same prayers. These were the ways Veril had taught the colt to honor the memory of his mother, a year after her passing, and these were the ways Ashamin remembered his father, now.

He relied on a sliver of vision in the dark, the sight of his companion's tracks made in the deep snow in the meadow. All else was covered, the white cloth of the filly's making draped delicately over his features and hiding his eyes from the sight of a bright, living world. Lochan's occasional brays and trills were guidance. With luck, the young cerndyr apparently had a much better sense of direction than Ashamin himself, and as a result they had made good time. They were close now to the border of the World's Edge, that herd the two-pronged stallion had ruled and hailed from.

But the meadow still rested under their feet, somewhere beneath that blanket of snow and moonlight. Though the pines of another herdland rose just up ahead, the burbling of water trapped under a river's ice could still be heard. The pair was trapped between two places, Ashamin trapped between two states of mortality.

Ashamin's body was sloped down, his head swinging low and his long tail dragging across the ice. Sparks danced across the surface of the snow and jumped up to catch the falling flakes; light flickered in and out of heavy clouds. His tread was slow, his heart heavy, but his resolve strong. He would travel to the World's Edge and seek out their seer, and he would learn of their God. He would have to. Ashamin needed a faith he could believe in, now more than ever.

He couldn't forget what had happened, just a year ago. He could never forget that cold and that aching, that sudden sense of loneliness. But somehow, Lochan would aid him through the pain. Their suffering would be eased, in the end.
""



A faith I can
believe in
is something
that you'll never know

I have suffered so long
under burdens of death
ones that I pray,
you'll never know.




[[@[Snö]--Night in the Thistle Meadow, snowing, very close to the border of the Edge. Ashamin is wearing his sarong wrapped around his eyes in mourning.]]