She does not want to be with them, to be with her, not while her soul is shattered and her mind is blank. The girl walks through the world numb, her fire finally burned out. Were it not for the heartbeat of her brother, she thinks, she might not be alive at all; but Natraj clings desperately to the world of life, his stubborn optimism both a blessing and a curse. She is trapped within him as surely as he is within her, caught up in his vivacious passion for this thing called life

I used to be like that, she catches herself thinking, and the thought is like a knife.

She is trapped within him, and drawn to him, and it is his call which brings her back like a reluctant spring, coiling into the embrace of her family despite her aching trepidation at the thought. No, she snaps, screams, begs- yet her hooves are moving of their own accord, her body dragged south to the source of his soul. She hates herself for her weakness, hates herself because she knows she wants it, because deep down she yearns for it. Hates herself because she will not accept what she deserves: isolation and decimation, the destruction of all she is.

She has spent little time at the Secret Grove; she has no lover to stride with under the moonlight, for whatever this thing she and Reginald have, it certainly is not love. There are some she may have shared it with, once, but they are long gone; and besides, they were little more than echoes, possibilities that never bloomed to anything more than passing friend.

Still, she thinks as her body breaks free of a copse of trees and her eyes reluctantly raise to meet a scaled face, if she were to walk through the woods, if she were happier and whole and willing to love again, it would be with her, the only soul left in this world she can truly say she loves.

"Amaris," the Fire Dancer chokes, a dangerous crack in her quiet facade opened to reveal the vulnerability within- then black eyes catch the white dragon's ghost, and the crack snaps shut.

The knife in her chest twists.

Her sunlit face flickers back into impassivity: a strange look for the fire child to wear, but the one she hides behind most often now. Natraj has returned to her hooves, hopeful and pleading for her to just talk, to feel, to remember what it was when they were young and the world was theirs, full of promise and magic and happiness but it hurts, hurts so much to think about and she can't, Raj, I can't, so just stop asking me, ok, because I CAN'T.

She breathes heavily in the silence, embers rising around her face. Her brother balks and whines imploringly, slinking back to Amaris' heels. He is lost, utterly lost; he shelters beneath their cousin's body, wishing for all to be right in the world. The girl stares blankly at the rippling pond, willing herself into a state of calm, forcing her gaze from Amaris, from Fajira, her mind a careful illusion of quiet above a raging storm of pain.

The knife is drawn, and blood flows free.

"Kaj was there, when they died. And a girl. She built a memorial... it's in the woods." The words fall like stones from her lips, listless and dark, clean of inflection and truth. Empty facts that mean nothing.

They took him from me, and cursed me for caring.

Her eyes are still dry.

She is breaths away from the dragonmare, but it feels like miles still stretch between them. Every moment of absence is another yard; every struggle they have not shared, a mile. How can they begin to reconcile, when the Fire Dancer isn't sure she knows the mare beside her anymore? She wishes she could hold her, soak up her cousin's pain and take it for her own; her narrow shoulders can bear the burden; she is already numb. Don't let this break Amaris her weary heart screams, yet how can she save her cousin when she could not save herself? She is nothing, not the moon on her face or the fire in her blood. She is worthless. She is broken. She is empty.

Mirage is dead, and the Fire Dancer cannot bring herself to cry.