Lived unbruised,
we are friends; and I’m sorry, I’m sorry.

Sigh no more.

This time, he wasn't alone.

Ashamin thought back, now, to the other times he had been to the Deep Forest. With Tiamat, with Atlas... there had been another time too, hadn't there been? There always were. But it wasn't his being in the forest with company that was unique, it was his being anywhere with company that was new. For days he had isolated himself in the wake of the horrors of his acts, trying to suss out his conflicting emotions. For the Mountain he felt a mixture of hatred and pity, something maybe like betrayal that he knew he didn't have a right to feel. After all, he hardly knew her. Could he really feel betrayed by someone whose name he didn't know?

Then again, she had used him. That much was clear. She must have known, when she tried to egg him on, exactly what she was doing. And so he felt it anyway, that emotion he didn't deserve: betrayal.

And then what of Hotaru? The mare that was his sunrise felt distant now in the wake of the death of a child. How would she see Ashamin now? Would he really be so beautiful in her eyes? Someone she could love?

The Ki'irha, his night sky. There was no way she could belong to him--she, the one who had offered her love first. He had turned her away out of what, fear? He couldn't be scared of love now, not when he craved it so severely. Without it, the clovenheart was sure he would die.

So when he left the Basin, naked save for his necklace and sarong and moving slowly towards the Dragon's Throat in hopes that their diviner and God could advise him in some way that no one else clouded by the northern and decidedly electric perspective could, he conceded and allowed his companions to follow. Rakt played off the reunion at first as nothing but an inconvenience (given that it woke him from a deep slumber in the day,) but revealed his hand by sticking close to Ashamin. Every other step the haruspex found himself almost tripping and looking down, curling his tail around to herd the young cerndyr forward and out from between his legs.

Lochan, though, walked ahead. Ashamin didn't ignore the odd silence in their bond, the absence of paintings passed into his mind. At last the little eye was showing a healthy fear for his bondmate's past crimes.

Ashamin just wanted to get away from it all. Even his magic felt like a burden, particularly the new one that he had eventually discovered after enough thin scrapes crackling themselves closed. The ability for his body to heal itself, even without a command? And manifested, too, at the most wicked moment of his life? What sort of sign was that, God of the Spark?

No, Ashamin didn't want to see a single vein of electricity for a few days, at least. But unfortunately, luck was not on the haruspex's side.

He recognized the sound even before he broke through the trees. Lochan stood still when Ashamin arrived before the two small creatures and their prize, very noticeably not warning Ashamin about the glowing orb beforehand. Absently he snorted in Lochan's direction, but the little eye looked blankly forward as if he hadn't noticed Ashamin at all.

The discomfort inhabiting the two white stoats was impossible to ignore, and as he watched them he knew that he'd have to give up on not using his magic for awhile. He was more interested in them than he was in the clearly magic thing floating between them. Whatever the orb was it just reminded him of Hotaru's magic and all the pain that came with that memory. It reminded him of his own powers, and the life he'd ended and learned of with their aid.

No, it was better to focus on the living than that.

"Are you alright?" Ashamin offered quietly, lowering his head down and trying to catch their gazes, flipping back and forth between the two. Tentatively he tried to reach out with his magic, hoping to soothe their heartbeats and perhaps sway them to feel less fear.

Their question was sharp, sudden, and caused his ear to flicker back in faint surprise. Was it that he hadn't expected them to talk? Then again, he had just spoken to them.

But how could he help? He ran through the options, using that seer's brain of his, and played them out. It would be easy enough to wrap his tail around the ball and try and drag it away--he didn't fear the pain and figured he would heal quickly enough now--but it was more long and awkward than he usually expected it to be, and the last thing he wanted was to knock over one of the little guardians with it.

His sarong was an option, but not one he was willing to seriously consider. Chances are it would go up in flames, and with it so would a token of his memories of Zahra, which he wasn't willing to let go of even if he hadn't seen the filly in some time. It already had a few tears that needed mending, and he didn't want to add burn marks to it.

Lochan's magic... well, Ashamin wasn't sure how the dark mists would work on something as immortal and opposite elementally as the glow's source. On top of that he wasn't sure Lochan would listen to him if he asked for the aid now. The small cerndyr seemed occupied with something beyond Ashamin's vision--something darker in the woods, no, beyond that: something left behind in the Hidden Rotunda.

Ashamin let himself frown, let a soft exhale flow from his nostrils and a chill breeze catch in the hair that was slowly thickening around his neck as he considered further options. He highly doubted that the orb had a heartbeat he could dim and he wondered vaguely about the consequences if he tried. If he knew or expected anything, it was that any object with the God of the Spark's power in it would bite as loud as it barked, and this thing didn't look like a tame breed.

So what then? If it would cause him pain no matter what, then why not just accept that? There was no way that he, anyway, could pacify the magic. Ashamin would never presume to have power greater than anything left by a god like he assumed this purely electrical orb was. Why not just let himself hurt, if it would stop others from doing the same?

It wasn't as though he didn't deserve it.

"Alright, let me try something. But stand back, and don't be scared. My sparks won't hurt you, and I'll be alright if I get a bit burnt," Ashamin said by way of warning. He let his hind hoof swing back slowly in delicate warning, gesturing for Rakt to clear away, and nodded only when the red cerndyr had done as he was told. The Clovenheart took a step back, attempted to pull his own shapeless, undiscovered heart from his chest, and move it to wrap around the orb to keep it still and the two creatures safe.

Ashamin didn't stop to think of the burns that would form on his sides should he succeed, the small pricking of heat that would mix with the healing sparks coming out of his broken hide. He didn't wonder if the pain would be mild or if it would make him fall and cry, helpless and weak on the cold deep woods ground.

Could he fall further than he already had?

""