When he turned to her it was like being stabbed through the heart, the stomach, a thousand knives all over her body. She caused that pain - that was her legacy. The torture she saw there was enough to bring tears to her eyes which she hastily turns to hide, guilt winning out over the anger she thought would protect her from this conversation. How could she call him her friend when she had treated him so terribly? The desire to run rises in her as those silent seconds stretch the distance between them. It was a mistake to follow Eliana here, such a mistake. Better to run back to the Edge and hide as she had been hiding, it was safer there.

But as she is making up her mind to leave, he speaks. That voice with all the sadness in the world stalls her and she knows that he truly blames himself for what happened between them. He’d always carry the burden of her mistakes, the faithful angel that fell from grace to save everyone. “No, no.” She doesn’t want to hear his apology - doesn’t want to forgive him or herself. What did she have if she let go of the anger and guilt that had been driving her for the past few seasons? She didn’t know what she was without them anymore, could barely remember a time when she hadn’t known what anger was.

She doesn’t have the courage to look at him when she replies, her voice quiet. She couldn’t even begin to apologize for the things she had done, for this rift that existed between them now. “I don’t blame you for leaving, I was so terrible to you. I thought I was doing the right thing… I was so sure. And we were so happy for a while I thought it could truly work.” He wasn’t the only one she had tricked, the illusion had settled on her as well. Throughout her pregnancy she had enjoyed the time they spent together, felt the comfort of his presence. It wasn’t all fake, she did love him but it was never what he wanted. She wasn’t capable of that sort of love, really. She loved everyone equally, with all her heart, and there simply was nothing more to give those that asked of it. Even her time with Sasha had been born out of her simple comments, comments she would say to anyone. And she had loved him too as she loved Mikey - but there had never been any way for her to explain that to others.

No, she didn’t blame him for leaving. That was her fault. “But… I needed you. And Naerys, oh Mikey, I’ve ruined our daughter. I wasn’t fit to raise her on my own, she thinks so little of me now.” She had never raised a foal before, not one of her own blood. With those she adopted it was so easy, they had known hardships and she came in to fix them. But Naerys had started out perfect - there was nothing for her to fix. Had she ruined her relationship with her daughter just as she had with Artorius? The thought sickened her - motherhood was always what she craved but she was so terrible at it when it truly came down to it.

But what else could she think? Naerys was so fond of others in the herd, especially Mauja, and took to wandering so often, getting herself injured in new ways every day. If she had grown up with Miykael, she would have been safe. Instead she had an absent mother - not physically, Alysanne had always been in the Edge, but mentally. Certainly not the mother that she deserved.

"You're not the fool, and I-I don't even deserve the title 'fool', I've become something so much worse." He had been the demon in Nocturne but she held that mantle now, nothing but a twisted copy of the smiling mare she once had been.