Travelling, it seemed, turned out to be less of a frightening experience when done with company. I knew that once - when my family and I would travel among the valleys and through the mountains - but had forgotten it lately. I had been on my own for what felt like a very long time - a vague part of the Basin and even with a few tentative friends - but still apart from them.

But I wasn’t alone this time. Calder had brought up the idea of wandering further south and I readily welcomed the chance to do something beyond being idle. Without a particular destination in mind, we had simply wandered and though I worried that we might accidentally trespass on one of the other three herds I had heard of or come across a group of outlaws like the one the kangaroo horse belonged to, we only rarely crossed the paths of others.

I told him stories of my other excursions - the strange star-coated and winged creatures I met and how I had asked them all whether they were gods. An embarrassing little footnote to the story, perhaps, but I tell him so that I might see him smirk or hear him tease me about it.

By now it was becoming a habit - settling to sleep near him. Close enough that the heat of his body was a constant presence - a comfort enhanced by the cloak that he had given me. After talking idly for a little bit, beneath the bright star sky I finally drifted to sleep.

The first thing I hear are screams. Distant in the valley, but they startle me awake where I lie near Tobias and little Liselotte, curled around each other for warmth in the middle of winter. I’m up on my hooves with them in a moment, Lotte crying while we look around and try to see what is happening and how we can escape. It’s all I can think of, to keep our daughter safe, and Tobias has similar ideas - moving to block both of us. But they are all around - strange, shifting shadows that flew overhead and underhoof. The attack comes too swift - in an instant the three of us are the only ones left in the whole herd.

There is no way out.

Tobias falls first, his blood seeming to match his dark body in the moonlight as it pools around him as if he were melting into the snow. All of our history, all of our jokes and our future, are bleeding out with the last moments of his life.

I’m staring at him when they get Lotte and her screams echo in my mind.

But I know that is wrong. She never screamed, she just faded away into coughs and sickness.

When I see her body, I know this is wrong, Lotte was supposed to live through the attack. I was supposed to get a little more time with her. I’ve collapsed on the ground near her body, near their bodies, and I’m surrounded by those of our friends.

I'm alone.

I didn’t realize that my sobs and screams would not have only wracked my body in my head but in reality as well. No amount of warmth, from the summer's night, a cloak, or a friend’s body, could have chased this nightmare away from me. It still had its grip on me, wanting to drag me deeper into memories that already haunted me every day.

image credit

“Wake up, lass.”

The words dance around me in that winter graveyard, a wind that stirred my mane as the screams subsided into weeping.

“Shh, Ellie, I’ve got ye.”

This promise stirred me and I shifted beneath the warm weight draped across me - my mind desperately trying to use it as a lifeline to claw its way out of the abyss that I had sunk into in my dreams. “No, no… she’s dead… she’s dead.” I mutter this, both inside and outside of my dream as I struggle towards consciousness - lingering between the chilly, death world of my dreams and the warmth of what waited for me outside of them.

I’m trembling in both worlds but I find that it is fading because I’m behind held in one of those worlds - someone, somewhere, is alive and with me. The one who was speaking to me, who was helping me wake, if only I could manage that last little bit. I want to shut my eyes and forget the scene before me, where my mate and child lie in puddles of their own blood, but I know that I can’t. It’s made out of memories that I will never be able to shake.

“They’re dead.” I whispered finally, my golden eyes flashing open with the final syllable - and I scrambled to my feet and stumbled a few shaky steps before finding that I wasn’t in that wintery scene. I was on top of a mountain, in a peaceful meadow at night, and there was a comforting presence near me.

My pale head finally stopped turning about and I struggle to get my rapid heartbeat to calm when my gaze found him. “Calder?” I breathed his name as confusion clouded my expression - taking a step back toward him but I quickly found that my legs couldn’t be trusted and I teeter where I stand. I want to apologize to him, realizing now that he had been trying to comfort me and I had twisted away from his touch, but the words stuck in my throat.

I'm awake but I can't escape the images, the memories.

image credit