Everything happened rather quickly after that. The grey glowed brightly, a soft echo of the golden sunlight that bathed the forest around them. Kodiak stared at her, uncomprehending, until the dulled ache suddenly vanished and a rush of clarity slapped him in the face. 

The crust of old blood and dirt still remained plastered to him, but his left eye was finally open and blinking rapidly. He quickly scrubbed his face against the inside of his knee to clear it. It was no use. The eye no longer pained him, but even while it was open wide it supplied little more than shadows and vague impressions. The realization washed over him in a wave of horror. He was blind. Damaged so deeply that even a healer couldn't restore his sight.

It was only the one eye, tried to tell himself. He still had another one that worked just fine. Other horses lived with far more inconveniencing disabilities, he was pretty sure he'd heard of that somewhere.

He twisted his neck awkwardly to turn his remaining eye on the two mares watching him intently. The grey stood on a pile of ashes, the remains of the flowers caught in her hair. She had expended energy and precious magic on him, a perfect stranger, while he had nothing to offer in return for her aid.

"Thank you," he said simply, putting as much sincerity into the two words as he could.

The blue, on the other hand, seemed far from deterred by his behavior. Behavior that he recalled with a fair amount of guilt. There was no honor in intimidating those weaker than himself, much less someone that just wanted to help him. She was all smiles and cordial words, a contrast to his somber silences. The grey struck him as someone that had either learned circumspection the hard way, or had merely seen too much suffering in the world and sought to right as much of it as she could.

The blue mare, Tiamat, as she called herself, showed none of that hurt outwardly. It was true that sometimes the most painful burdens were hidden by the flashiest masquerade, but something about her seemed genuine.

"The Aurora Basin?" he inquired, if only to keep her talking a little longer. He didn't bother telling her that there was nothing else wrong that she could fix. The damage inside him was far past what any herb could cure.

He tried to think back to his own home, but all that came to him were bits and pieces before Agnodice healed him. Nothing more than flashes and certainly nothing concrete enough to know where to go from here.

So this was to be his fate then, to wander a strange land, half blind and brain damaged?

 
 
"Talk."
@Tiamat
@Agnodice

I'm walking the long road
          watching the sky fall