M E G A E R A
"We cast a shadow on something wherever we stand, and it is no good moving from place to place to save things; because the shadow always follows. Choose a place where you won't do harm - yes, choose a place where you won't do very much harm, and stand in it for all you are worth, facing the sunshine." -- E.M. Forster


There's a devil called love and his power is great and terrible; never in all the ages did a face seem so beautiful and hide such a twisted thing with the will to bring together and the strength to rip all asunder. This devil called love had bound a chord from Megaera's heart to Cera's, a friendship that could have held against any army but seemed to rip so easily when they pulled at each other. It was love that caused the hurt, and love that had the power to mend but both were blind to that, tried to hide that vulnerability from each other and themselves by pulling back and pushing away when both needed so fiercely to hold tight. Megaera had meant to leave him and in turn he'd left her, for the devil will have his due.

Meg had screamed blasphemy at Cera's retreating back, but even that had not been enough to bring him back. She seethed, staring as he disappeared across the dunes and reaching for the stength of need outrage and love anger in order to keep herself standing. Oh, would that that could have been the end of it, that she could have limped off to lick her wounds in peace. When, Megaera wondered, had battle become so much less exhausting than words; when had the bite of blade or teeth stung less than dismissal or disapproval? But that wasn't the end of it (the devil would never be so merciful) because Ampere was still there.

Megaera turned her eyes from the friend that was to the friend that might have been. And whey weren't they friends? Sisters-in-arms they might have been, but she and Ampere had danced so long around acquaintance and still she could not find a reason for it. Respect was there, at least on Meg's side, and now shared grief.

"Why didn't you tell anyone!?"

Why hadn't she? From the first moment, once she had been well enough to stand after Vastra and Castor's birth, why hadn't he raised the alarm? For fuck's sake, she could have lit a beacon and had the whole herd assembled within hours! 

"You're not alone in this Megaera! You are our sister, we would have helped you!"

For a moment Meg's fierce eyes seemed to glaze over with the realization. It was her fault, whether that was truth or not, the idea that all this really was her fault sunk in and scoured her soul like a brand. No! her mind leaped to defend itself from utter despair. For right or for wrong, she wouldn't give in to it, she would fight, fight, FIGHT! Not my fault! It can't... I can't...I CAN'T!! 

She reeled back as though Ampere had struck her, and so the Blue had with a hard slap of truth. And how could Meg respond? "Well, my mate said we should leave so I am going to tuck my tail and run because I and hurt and ashamed and afraid." Volley after volley of shame assailed Megaera and could have been delivered by no better mouth than Ampere, who Meg respected, who she had even liked, as much a true equal as Meg had ever had. Ampere could judge her in all ways without reproach: as a former Sultana, as a daughter of the Dragon's Throat, as a mother, as a warrior, as a woman.

She turned hard then, a wall to hold herself in and hold everything else out because how else could she survive this? "Because I have nothing left for this place. I have loved and I bled and for what? For her herd that thinks so very little of me." Her voice was flat, bitter. Whoever it was that spoke now was so far removed from Megaera that her face was like a mask somebody else wore, familiar features in strange expressions. "Help me? But I'm just a failure aren't I? A ruined pretender to the title of Sultana."

"Admit it! I am nothing to you or these people except a jumped-up soldier who needed Gaucho to spoonfeed her everything she ever had. His lacky and his stooge, who didn't even see that he was dying because she was too caught up with the worthless brats she'd pumped out for his cousin." There was no fire there, the light at the mare's core had grown so very dim, and not even ice to replace it. Nothing but stone. "I'm leaving, Ampere, because even the sand makes me sick."