“How perfect it all has been,” were the last words his mother had said to the world.
 
Dragomir was still not sure what to think of it.  Should he be sad that his mother was gone?  Part of him demanded his right to be, but another replayed her frail voice to him whenever the sorrow welled.  How could he be sad for a woman who had lived a life so plentiful and good that she had died with a smile on her lips, her family close by?  If he were to die in such a fashion, he thinks to himself, he would be a fortunate man.
 
His life, however, had thus far been so flawed with imperfections that he was unlikely to justify it in such a fashion when the curtain came down.  He had never found a place where he felt he had belonged, the only times he had fleetingly managed to achieve that dream vanishing no sooner than he had realized he’d found them.  His secondary dreams of love and family had been dashed twice; first against the distant shore below the World’s Edge, and, while he was loathe to even admit there had been love at all (what would my father say?  And our God?), the second had likely been struck from the record no sooner than he had vanished into the night all those months ago.
 
The smell of the flowers they had picked together still lingered in his pouches, though.  He occasionally found the dried, fragile remnants of them when he cast off the harness to rifle through the odd tidbits he’d picked up along his travels, and hurriedly shoved inside.  Each time the paper thin petals brushed passed his nose with their bittersweet aroma, he felt a welling of emotion rise within him that was both delightful, and sad.  Even worse was when the glass entwined in his tail tinkled its once comforting song, now singing, instead of psalms of friendship and togetherness over distance, sonnets of looking for someone who was not there, and of how he’d abandoned her.
 
It was not that he did not have a good reason, he thinks, hesitating outside the perimeter of the threshold of Helovia for a moment, staring up at their tall, orange crowns, as if they would tell him what to do.  Still, it did not take away the guilt for not having insisted that they wait until morning, or having not really thought of her at all until it was too late.  After then, he hadn’t been able to stop thinking of her, really, even when he hadn’t wanted to think about anything at all.
 
The sigh that falls from his lungs after a deep, bolstering breath is long, and speaks volumes of how much he both dreads and longs to be close to those within these borders again.  Shifting his weight so that the leather pouches strapped to his large body shift into a more favorable position, the tobiano sets hoof back within the realms of Helovia, and makes his way to no where in particular.
 
[ OOC:  Weee ~ Anyone is welcome. <3 ]