Every day since his birth, Casca had learned something new.
He had started out with the basics: learning to walk, recognizing Ma and Da and Gal by scent in the dark, knowing his name. Then came the more complex stuff: Da’s sneaky stealth lessons, reading Ma’s tone to see if she would smile or scold, being nice to Gal when his magic scared him, learning about ants…
Today he learned about death.
What he would remember when it was all over, though, was not the bodies falling in droves, the press of the panicked crowd tight against him, or even the destruction of the only world he had ever known: what Casca would remember was Ma screaming like a stranger, howling that HE HAD KILLED HER BABIES, HE HAD KILLED HER BABIES, HE HAD KILLED--
And then she was trying to run, the only time she had ever run away from him in his life, but Da was blocking her and she was shrieking she’d kill him, and Gal was burning again, and he was choking on smoke and tears and fear. “M-ma…” the red colt whimpered, voice inaudible in the din of simultaneous rage and grief that surrounded them. “Ma, please…” he was pleading with her, begging her to stop. And perhaps that made him heartless, but he was still a child and his Ma was his whole world. He could go on without Helovia, but not without her.
Everything after he would never remember clearly. There was the sound of an explosion, then a flash of white as Gal’s magic finally consumed him. There was a rough shove from somewhere behind him, and Ma was jolting forward, and he was jostled along with her, following the light on her back, stumbling into the portal, leaving behind the dying world that he’d been born into.
And then there was silence.
"blah blah blah."
OOC: Thank you to everyone for giving me the gift of your writing, your characters, and creating incredible stories together on this site. Onward to the Rift!
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[SWP] The beginning of the end :: the ending.
