At the sun's first ray, fingers of pale green and blue slid across the sky, glowing orange in their roots. The sun was rising playing a game of time with the stallion, finding it hard to time his caw with the delivery of sunlight over the mountaintops. He had succeeded, red raven eye shrinking small in the presence of such saving light. A ray of hope shined down on him.

    Daltoff felt a sharp, icy voice freeze his brain, but not his transformation. The one small bird eye looked out against inky feathers, finding the Frostheart's clear gaze, all hope and plea going into the speed of his change. Before the old General could utter a word, the sun's light exploded over the valley, grabbing away at the feathers of his coat. Gold warmth forced the feathers back where they'd come from, the saving militia of his day. Glinting on the blackness of his beak, cracking it with unseen hands, ripping away at the night's awful creation. Like a boiled shell it cracked and flaked into the frost of morning revealing a compressed maw. Fleshy nostrils twisted their way to the surface, dark hairs grew like spring grass, and the wings of his shoulders were broken. The sun tore them down, pulling away at each painful bone, one by one cracking the joints like the cold on bark. It was a removal of death, a resurrection he'd referred to it as. Saved by the sun that once terrorized him, haunted by the night that once served as a loyal companion to him.

    It was gone now. The sun ate away the remains, leaving the feather fibers to stain the ground. The last to transform was the solitary eye, a flash of sun twisting the contents of the glassy thing, swirling the mixture until it returned to normal. The pain flew away at that moment, and all that was left was the stillness and the never-forgetting shadow that glared in the protection of his legs. The eye, a newly formed window to the soul, rolled to the most-likely horrified eyes of the beholder.

    Daltoff dipped his head in respect for his King, underbelly of his dual toned horn pressing into the frost laden ground. "Mauja the Frostheart," the old General says, more quietly than the transformation's climax, but loud enough so he could place things where needed be by familiarity in his brain. "Dearest King, I must say that this," he motions to the fibers of destroyed raven curse in the pallid ground. "this is no momentary phase."

    With pain gone, the old general’s eye slinks to his surroundings. He knows this place to be a heaven. The thin air of altitude settling in his enlarged lungs breathes a sort of relief into him that fills his dark skin with a refreshing shiver. Finally an escape from the sun for the brutish horse – not really. It rose in a shy manner, peering over the glittering peaks like a hero to Daltoff. He once forgave the sun for his rants, but whispered the night cursed as it brought on its game of dress up. The stallion took a step forward, an instinct, drawn into the warm flurry of light as it existed before him. Simply put, there wasn’t an escape from the dark. It always followed him in the form of a shadow, replicating the form he wished would last forever, reminding that night would always come.

    So in short, he was haunted by something he used to love basking in.

    He remembered the Frostheart then and how he received the ability to summon blissful calm nights to his lands. But it appeared to Daltoff the Moon wanted to say something to him, damn him for something he didn’t know. What was a bad enough happening? Magic had claimed everything he’d ever known and thrown it into nonexistence. It made his life a mad vortex of emotions the stoic male couldn’t force himself to believe were true. His life was bad. He knew this. But he didn’t know how to get a good grip on why. Instead, he slid down an ice bank nearing his doom which was stabbed onto the pricks of his own race.

    He’d rather be dead than sliding.

     He broke again to reality as a voice crept from the Frostheart's cold tongue. He saw, in the corner of his one eye, a girl approach, but the great King did not waver to her presence. Daltoff titled his curved horn downwards to at least gesture her near, to show that he wasn't truly matched with such an evil appearance. He imagined she'd break to a horrified gait as most mares do to the sight of him, and haul back to her mother's warm side. She didn't. But then she called the spotted King father and he understood. No child of the King should turn to fear quickly. Daltoff felt a warm, unnoticeable smile form mentally, for the king had a child.

    But he heard sympathy from Mauja's cool voice, and it warmed him like a friend rubbing the chill away from war-tired legs. "Do you know if something can be done..." Reality poured in him once more, bitter on his lips. "No." His tail swished with defeat. "I left Heloiva looking, King. I'm afraid the things I found weren't relevant to this curse. The further I ran the more pain this curse drew from me. So I returned to see if the Gods would like to say something to me. Maybe they would have an apology somewhere in their power-marred minds." He just had to find them, and swear with enough vigor to shake their arrogant heads but not enough for them to slam him into the spikes of ice he was sliding into.