"Which way is yours, Wing-Hunter? Where is it you wish to go? If you know not what you seek, you will surely wind up travelling in circles."

Circles. Perhaps that was all her life was, just wandering in bigger, smaller circles. To exit one circle right into another. After all, she had been born into a circle of violence. Her father had been determined to destroy all the inferiors, and had passed on this wish to her. He had ruined their family (or had he?) as she had ruined what could have been hers. His circle had been passed on to her. And here she was, trapped in the circle of destruction all over again. It was all she knew, all she would ever know. And she was running circles without her king, lost in the feeling of desertion. His fault or not, he was gone, and she couldn't bear the loss without someone to blame.

She was lost in thought for a moment, still following the odd little stallion. He leaped, foal-like, from drift to drift, spraying up little fluffs of snow and leaving a rather perplexing trail to any who might follow. They might assume that they followed a mare and her foal, such were their tracks: hers a straight line, evenly measured hoofprints, light footed and his prints in leaps and bounds, none quite the same. She remembered her days with a young foal, and she felt a yearning that drew her into the memory. But no, there was no point, she would never again have the feeling that she'd had in those days. She was to be queen, then, and her daughter a princess. She could have done anything - they could have done anything. But that was over now.

A sigh was heard, a strange sound from she who maintains such stoic control. "Perhaps you are right in that," she agreed absentmindedly. What was it that she sought? World domination? Well, she was on the path to that, she had set things in motion. If it were just that, would she be here, now, having this conversation, feeling so alone? No, there must be more that she pined for, more that she wanted. More and more she felt the desire to go back in time, to change her actions... but that was impossible - wasn't it? "I don't suppose walking in circles will rewind time?" she asked dryly, not really expecting and answer.

[W/C | 408]