Eventide is softly casting o'er the earth a magic spell,

And a love-song, everlasting, on the night wind seems to swell.

What was this darkness that pooled within, that made her dance through the daylight, spreading ice and darkness all around? It was thick as congealed blood, quivering and stagnated where the light of laughter could not reach, hidden - or perhaps not - deep within the crevices of the soul. Had it always been there? The flavor of it was familiar, reminiscent of fear and pain and the bile of nightmares upon the tongue, it was the sound of screams and of sobs held back so desperately that it felt as though she might choke. Trapped, grounded, stranded, but as she turned further and further inwards and gazed upon the internal landscape, she found that the bright light of life and laughter was surrounded by dark, dark, dark...

Perhaps it ought to trouble her. Erthë had come to understand that some viewed darkness as something bad, as if the absence of light was something to reject. They said that death was bad too, that it was evil and must be combated, staved off, pushed back as long as possible. But... she couldn't agree. Erthë knew death, knew the sight and taste and sound of it. She had stared it in the eye more than once, had nearly experienced it herself, but even so she could not bring herself to fear it. No, not death... More terrible still was the fear that ran avaunt guard before it, the deep sorrow and melancholy that followed in its wake; terrifying, too, was the vast, endless stretch of time bridging the distance, with life still waiting.  

No, death did not frighten her half as much as the uncertainties of life, nor did the darkness within her trouble her. If anything, she was worried that her family might push her away because of it, that it would swallow her light completely, that she would lose control over the deep, dark impulses that now drove her.

Drunk on this unusual state of mind, she roved the borders of the Grove draped in the enchanted night her bracelet provided. There was a certain thrill to breaking the rules, even ones she had set up for herself. Though she had forbidden herself from leaving the herd until summer this was the second time she drifted away, and the bitter loathing guilt scratched her throat like sea water, like half rotten fruit, like how she imagined the burning liquids must taste, the ones they made in the Dragon's Throat...

Perhaps she would really know what it was like soon. Come summer, if her legs healed, if a miracle happened....

No. She would make it happen!