As if a stray piece of driftwood moving down the shoreline, Ampere wandered along the water's edge. Giving way beneath the weight of her hooves the sand moved about, carving out her unique trail, but instantly losing it among the smattering of other hoof prints and sea foam alike. Beside her the ocean breathed; a gentle roar heavy with salt and renewal. With its relentlessly gnawing teal maw and frothed fangs, nothing could endure the sea. There was a certain beauty to that, this notion of inevitable decay and change, however slow it may be, as the sand could surely attest to a lifetime. It made loss seem more acceptable.

The rhythmic movement and pulling and taking of the tide suggested tranquility and balance to Ampere, and the crisp air with its brine fragrance and curt winds was invigorating. It was a different feeling than that of the desert's coast; the heat and the dust and the herd changed the shore there, seemed to diminish it in her eye, where as this beach diminished her. She wanted to feel small today.

Behind her Iskra played in the black strands of her tail, its body alive in the marine breezes. The gulls were quiet today, sullen beneath the backdrop of gray sky that suggested an oncoming storm; it was still far off, not liable to hit until dusk, but the sky was heavy with it, like lead, and so the birds settled in early to wait it out. Even Kygo was tucked tightly away, the small parrot having perched on a shrub-tree several paces back, content to nap while the grief-driven mare tried to wear the sadness out of her. Helpful as he tried to be, he felt distance was best to give her, and such was the depth of her hurt that even the upbeat conure was persuaded to mourn daily.

Ampere stopped with her fetlocks tangled in the tide, head lifted tall into the wind. Her eyes shut against the sea spray as it whipped up against her cheeks, mixing with the wetness already present there until they were one and the same. As her heart ached, she let the sea carry it away, or at least hoped it would.

They were adrift.

Among the sands, beyond the sea, brushing up against each other like debris tangled together. This had been his existence thus far, altered only by the occasional swell that rose within her, like a tempest that came with a fierce, but brief force. Her outbursts seemed to drain her further, and she dragged all the heavier afterwards.

As he aged by the day he became increasingly perceptive. This was not normal. At first it seemed likely, because what else had he known - how do you even define normal anyway, much less at the start? Arguably this was his normal, which is why he felt content, but he knew it wasn't the normal. Other foals around him seemed more prone to frolic, and why not, their mother, nay, their parents, encouraged it with their own vigor. Iskra however, clutched tightly to the morose shadow that was his dam, a darkness that not even his ever-present sparks and all the light they emitted could drive away.

Certainly there were times when his youth overwhelmed him and he sprinted off, bucking, squealing, rolling this body part and that one just because he could (or as the sand sometimes reminded him when he planted into it, could not). When he did she rarely responded - just occasionally flicking her dull gaze to him, rarely a lift of her head, and but once a hoarse whisper of his name along the breeze. He might have run off into death by now if not for his innate empathy; a beating heart he was born with like all the rest, but one that seemed to beat for others as much as for himself.

He was sad for her. Knowing her like this, understanding more and more that something was wrong, his heart went out to her all the more, and so he lingered and behaved as best he could. It wasn't too hard. Moms are nice after all. They're warm, and safe, and they're food. Sensibility alone drove him to stay next to her, but empathy kept him.

As she stopped he bumped against the back of her legs, marked face poking through the fronds of her tail to peer beneath her belly at the blue beast rolling before them. The ocean was nothing new, but this one was different, he noticed it at once. Curious, Iskra stepped forward, his strides slow and cautious, his knees jerking up high as he pranced among the moving lip of the sea. His bottle brush tail wagged energetically against his rump, and his wings fanned out for balance on either side of him, fire and lightning bits unfurling from beneath and rolling up and around his primaries, seemingly chasing each other before falling off the edge of his feathers and winking out of existence.

In a different time, a better time, Ampere would have humored her son and splashed in the tide with him. She would have enticed him into a game of tag, playfully nipping at him, just out of reach until she'd finally let him 'catch' her and dissolve the whole chase into a swimming session and laughter. That would have been a time when her heart was whole, when she could carry enough love for the living wildfire of a stallion and all his children, but that time was not now, and so the only thing she provided her child was neglect.

So it should be no surprise that the second child elicited little more than a blinking of her lashes as she turned towards the small, new voice. The moisture caught in the dark fringes blurred her vision, causing the shadowy figure to dance beside her son. He was of little consequence, so she resumed the game of ignoring. Not even a single stray thought about his mother's whereabouts or his general well being wafted across her consciousness. If she couldn't gather enough crumbs to tend to her own progeny, she certainly didn't have the strength to dote upon others - but she would have, once.

The sound of sand being pushed aside beneath hooves was the first indication of his approach. The second was the gradual lifting of her feathers from their slack relaxation to the very tips of their reach. Her nostrils flared, then quivered as she drew him in, while his presence stole across her like the winter winds. When he spoke, her flesh shivered, rippling like black water as she curled away from him, bowing like a branch to the stiff breeze. With her name, he begged her eye, and stiffly she cast him a single one from the edge of her face, neatly tucked against her shoulder, wet mane and forelock scattered across with her inescapable wildness.

"Bold of you to travel with children, Mesec," she said in sharp, though quiet and rough response, as though she hadn't spoken in a while and her throat was unaccustomed to it. Her stare, though originally directed at him, caught sight of the filly near him. There was no doubt in that moment whom the colt belonged to then either.

They looked like him, she noticed, and for some reason that hurt. It was surprising she could still recognize a new wound given the constant ache that churned inside of her, and even more alarming that he could manage to inflict them still. Hadn't she buried him beyond Helovia, when she spent those days and nights tangled in madness and despair? Hadn't she moved on and burned him from her being with the Wildfire's blaze?

Or was that it - was she cast back into the darkness, now that the embers had grown cold? Was she so fucked up that she could only ever love those whom would hurt her? At what point would the self betrayal ever stop?

Anger sparked inside of her, striking off some bone that wasn't waterlogged with grief. "Given your history," she snarled, attempting to hurt him, wanting to drag him into this pain too because that was certainly easier than admitting she still wanted him.

It was easier than realizing he didn't want her any more - not if he had two little shadows in tow, belonging to some other mare's cunt.

Was she so forsaken, that she lost both her sun and her moon?
Seemed so.

[welp this didn't turn out as planned. fml Ampere you're such a bitch I hate you :| ]

As absorbed in his self-made game of chasing the surf as he was, Iskra hadn't noticed the small colt sneak up on him until he spoke. The sound, so unexpected, so unlike his mother's (and therefore, someone else's), startled him straight up into the air, legs all splayed out and feathers puffed out on end like a frightened cat. He landed with a splash and a snort, which soon dissolved into a grin when he noticed it was just another foal and not a scary sea monster after all.

"HI!" Iskra greeted gleefully as he stepped closer to the boy, his nose outstretched with curiosity. "I'm really glad yur nawt a monstar tryin ta eat me!" He laughed, at himself mostly. "I'm Iskra," he returned at last, the giggles subsiding back to a wide-mouthed grin and a shake of his head that set his short mane toppling back and forth across his neck like a dark tide.

"Wow, you gotta horn AN wings!?" Iskra marveled, stepping forward without reservation to inspect the child further. "That's really neat! I've only seen one other like that, must be really speshul!" He nodded his head in confirmation of his lore.

"Anyway, I was lookin fer fish to play tag with, wanna help?" His tail wagged with poorly contained anticipation, a look which broke suddenly as a strange arrived and his mother moved defensively. Because she was closer to the apparent danger (based on her reactions), Iskra didn't immediately move to duck under her, but he did sidle closer towards Virga, wanting to press up against him, finding comfort in that warm contact of another beside him. "Who's that?" he whispered worriedly. Then what he didn't ask, why doesn't mom like him?"

She wanted to see him hurt, wanted him to writhe beneath her the way she had for seasons after her encounter with him. She wanted him to feel that agony that she felt when she was without her family, then that regret when she returned and had to beg for their forgiveness. She wanted him to feel that empty, awful loss that Gaucho had left behind in her being, that same one that was echoing in Mesec's presence as she regarded his two offspring.

She wanted all of that, but more than anything, she wanted him to come closer. Wanted him to tell her it'd be alright like he always had. From that first moment they met, when the world was spinning into darkness faster than you could blink, to that lost night on the beach when they finally broke through the years of affection and he reached in and rescued her from herself, he had always been this magnificent savior.

That's why it hurt so much when he stopped being a knight and just became the night. She had become terrified of what he could do, and that's why she left; him and everyone else. It wasn't just the threat upon her kids, it wasn't just the tortured looks he threw her across the forest as he fought the inevitable change, it was also the distrust brewing inside of her because of all that. It was the gradual tarnishing of this sterling man, and that she wasn't strong enough to make him shine again, because she had never been the light. Between Gaucho's fire and Mesec's silver, they had brightened her, cast a glow upon her darkness and kept the shadows at bay.

What could she do for them?
Gaucho had died, and Mesec had... moved on.

She could see it; it was there, in place of the hurt she thought she wanted to see, in place of the love she wished she'd still see. Mesec was shining all on his own, and that light was reserved for his two children, because he shined brightest for them. It was evident int he doting, careful way he tended to the outspoken filly. Her words had brushed past Ampere, her focus too intent upon the Nightwind, but she saw him with the girl, and he was something different. This wasn't the Mesec she'd come to run from, and this wasn't the Mesec even before that one. This was something stronger than he'd ever had, something that had gone through hell and come back out the other side. Mesec had stopped being afraid of the darkness that surrounded him, and that acceptance let him shine all the brighter.

So Ampere waned.

She didn't get what she wanted out of him; didn't get his hurt, or his love, she got something different. She visibly softened, the angles of her defensive posture growing more curved, the sharpness of her gaze dulling like a worn blade. It had all been for show anyway, and that little flame she'd ignited was washed away in an instant by the sea of grief that she was sinking into. She blinked, then dropped her head as he spoke.

"I'm glad," she said softly after moments of silence. It was if her words had to churn through all the water inside her, finally spilling out tired and soggy. "Who's are they?" she asked softer still, as if she didn't really want him to hear, because she didn't really want to know.

Unable to really look at him any more her gaze, which had been steadily averting, now watched the children on her other side. A ghost of a smile found its way to her lips as her gaze traced the outline of his two foals, especially the brave little girl. The same girl that didn't want him to leave...

"We all leave you know," she murmured to the filly, but it was audible enough for Mesec to catch it too.
She wasn't being cruel now, she was just breaking.
"Just like he left," her voice grew thin and strained, barely making it past her lips with anything intelligible. A pause then, as Ampere drew in a shaky breath. "Because he died," she exhaled, a sob as much as a phrase.

"Whoa!" Iskra marveled at the monster-eating boy, who really was speshul. "What do they taste like?" Iskra asked with the same serious intensity that Virga had demonstrated. It didn't even cross Iskra's mind that he was being played, but it also didn't cross his mind that if it were true, he ought to be scared of the monster-eater. For now, in his young eagerness to explore the world and understand it, simply getting the chance to meet someone who ate monsters and ask them what they tasted like was enough; maybe when he actually encountered a monster, maybe when he actually felt that thrill of danger, not just the colt-sneaking-up-on-you kind, then his priority would be putting distance between himself instead of asking questions.

Iskra will never get to know then, because the conversation is swept away by that same eagerness of his, and then all of it is pressed into quiet as the Nightwind breaks across them, blowing Ampere into those hard lines that Iskra isn't familiar with.

There's a filly too, Iskra notices after he's asked who he is (which he never gets an answer to, but manages to figure out that it's dad for them the way-), "she's my mom." Iskra says steadily in response to Virga, that sense of comfort, of friendship, suddenly lost and cold as the colt moves away from him and instead slips his wing over his sibling. Iskra feels naked as he stands alone. He knows what it's like to have a brother and sisters, but it's not the same as them. They're twins, he recognizes, and that makes it a little special, because they'll grow up together. Iskra's sisters are like that, and they're basically the skeleton and skin for each other, making on being instead of two. Then there's his older brother, but that's just it, he old, and although he's plenty fun, he's gone a lot too doing adult things.

So that pretty much leaves Iskra with mom, except she's gone too, in her own way. She's around, but she's not present much.

So Iskra is used to standing alone, but it doesn't stop the shiver that runs along his coat, a reminder of the absence he's left with as Virga moves away; a reminder of the vulnerability he's wrapping around himself when dangerous things start to happen.
Still, Iskra find the ability to smile, finds something warm inside himself to dredge up, and he nods in response to the filly that joined them - the one that had the audacity to shout down at his mom (even if he liked the things she said, he still thought she was crazy for saying them like that). "Hi Vesper, I'm Iskra!" He's still bright, still cheery, but it's not that same easiness that came at first. He's got a wary eye on the colt now, the one that looks like he's too tight for his own skin, the one who's eyes got hard and voice got short.

If he eats monsters, and he thinks Ampere is a monster, does that mean he'd try and eat her?
Well, Iskra wasn't worried, but he didn't want the colt to get smooshed either. So he wants to distract the boy from doing something foolish, wants to keep this promise of friendship and happiness that he's often without, so he's happy to divert back to the game.

"We were gonna chase some fish, want to help?"

That they were his was very apparent. She had known the first moment she looked at them; if she'd doubted, she'd known the first moment she looked at him. So his gesture of sliding a wing across his child only confirmed what was already known - what wasn't known was who the mother was, but just as much as Ampere didn't actually want to learn it, so Mesec seemed reluctant to tell it. Did he fear her anger, she wondered faintly, unable to think of any other reason he might keep their mother a secret.

Or is she dead? Ampere couldn't help but notice the mare was not here.
Though, these children didn't much seem touched by loss yet. Then again, neither did Iskra, and he had been.

It didn't matter after all, though.
It never had and it certainly didn't now as Ampere began to sink, choking on her grief. Like water it rushed into all parts of her, filling her, weighing her down and pushing out anything and everyone else. She was surrounded by it on all sides, a murkiness that washed across her eyes until the horses around her were but dim shapes, flitting about like fish in a lake; her hair the seaweed dancing in the motion of their fins.

No one could quite seem to understand it either. It's as if they looked at her and wondered she she didn't just swim.
Didn't they know? She had become the water, after all this time.

"H-he," she continued as her lungs rattled some air in, the sensation whooshing past all the water, keeping her alive just enough to suffer longer. "G-g-g" like bile in the back of her throat the word was coming up, but she was trying to keep it down. Gasping, shaking, until finally collapsing with the weight of the name she hadn't spoken for weeks.

"Gaucho."

Her knees leaned her towards the ground as Ampere crashed into a kneel, her head slung carelessly against the terrain with a wide-eyed stare of horror that looked but didn't see. Sweat pooled in the edges of her features, an anxious response to finally letting this small part of him go; his name upon her lips. Mare air seemed to get into her lungs as she pushed that word out, and although she wasn't anywhere near the surface, it was a start.

"Gaucho is dead" she whispered fiercely, the grasses swaying with the force of her breath.

It was real now.
Part of her thought if she just never said it, if she just held onto it long enough inside of her, then maybe something could change. Maybe he'd come back, maybe he'd visit her in some way, maybe he'd be reborn and she could watch him renew. Such thoughts had her wondering about Sohalia's daughter again, the one that said she saw his spirit. Desperately Ampere wanted to hold onto that belief, that Gaucho was still present int he world in some small manner, yet she couldn't help but feeling like he was utterly and completely gone. A cold corpse that burned only one more time as his hide was reduced to ash.

She'd wanted a phoenix, but he'd only ever been a Wildfire after all.

His body is stiff. His expression is frozen, the smile he's fitted onto it like carved stone, well practiced, and usually honest. It's not now though, not as he hears the words of the adults breaking behind him like waves on the coast, cold and powerful and so eager to sweep you away. Yet still he smiles, attempts to be lighthearted, his eyes nearly screaming for it to be true. Let's just play a game and forget, let's just pretend we're happy and everything is fine, because if he lets himself succumb to the sadness the way his mother has, then he's not sure he'll ever be able to survive again.

You see, he has to be carefree enough to float, or else she'll drag him down in there with her, and he's terrified of that.

"Yea," he saw in an almost dismissive response to Vesper, a verbal shrug as his eyes skirt to look anywhere besides his damn that just crashed into the sand. The sound causes a flinch against his pelt however, and as if spooked, he scoots further away from her and towards the shoreline, intent on his hunt for fish even if the other foals won't assist. Just play some games, just play some games and then it'll all be better.

Just hide under the sheets, close your eyes, and the monsters will leave you alone and go away, right?

It's as if he didn't hear Vesper's other suggestion, but he has, and though he doesn't intend to ignore her he can't deal with it right now. A present certainly seems nice, and admittedly he hasn't tried that yet, but he's been shunned by her before so right now he's coping the only way he knows how. "You better run!" he calls out, overly joyous and zealous as he splashes towards a scaled fiend.

Sorry.

She felt he meant it, believed him when he said it, but it didn't change anything, not really. Besides, what was he even sorry for? Sorry that Gaucho, a great stallion and Sultan had passed? Sorry that she felt the sting of that loss? Sorry that he did not know, that he was not there, that all of this shit piled up between them?

What was the point of sorry if it still hurt afterwards?
By the gods, what was the point of anything any more?

Somewhere amid the chaos she was tumbling into she was aware of his hooves scuffing down the sand as he carried himself closer to her, closing whatever divide lay between them, even if only for this one day. His touch came with such hesitation she could feel his breath before the velvet of his maw embraced the folds of her neck. Each exhale was a pulse of warmth against the cold she stoked within, a gentle reminder of the life still unfolding around her even as she clutched singularly onto the death.
It had always been like that, her chasing the dark, him the little bit of silver shining through, promising something better.

Except, what do you do when the better always slips away? What do you do if that little shine isn't around? Because as much as Ampere appreciated that touch, as much as she melted under that warmth and wanted to hold onto that reminder he offered, she also couldn't ignore the gap that had just been, the caution that had filled it with a terrible slowness as he approached. She felt a prickling feeling wash all across her body, as if it was a ghost who touched her now and not just the Nightwind.

Was this going to be goodbye, their final embrace, or was it just the unsteady reunion or something they'd both lost?

Ampere had no answer, and for a while was only able to continue pressing herself into the sand and mourning. At some point it stopped being just Gaucho she was sobbing over, like he was a catalyst to tumble all the strength she had built out of matchsticks over the years, burning it up in a final, single blaze. Eventually though, sooner than it may have seemed to her as the time slogged through all the grief, Ampere quieted under Mesec's watch. She still stayed curled up on the ground, her legs starting to go numb, but that sensation was nothing new these days.

"Why's it all got to go to shit Mesec?" she asked softly, her tone casual as if they could just talk again, as if this wasn't something broken that she was playing pretend with. She didn't look at him, maybe it would ruin the illusion, so instead she stared off into the distance of the beach. "Why do I feel like I'm always chasing something I'll never catch? Happiness shouldn't be this hard," the way she talked was comfortable, because Mesec was comfortable, as long as she was playing pretend at least, as long as she went back to the Mesec that didn't have kids, to the Mesec that didn't become a warg (what was she back then? The same... broken and sobbing over the dark still?). Mesec was one of the very few, if not the only horse, she ever had completely honest conversations with. Whether that said more about him or about her wasn't ever clear.

"The sun always rises, the storm always ends... but then the sun sets again, and the weather always turns bad one season or another." The more she talked the more her voice took on a drawl, distant and heavy and worn out. "I'm tired of being sad."
She finally turned to look at him, the blue of her gaze dry but no less full of water. "I'm sure you are too," she muttered, then averted her stare, clearly ashamed. "I'm sorry I always do this too... just always a wreck aren't I?" she sighed, and it was bitter.