He was gone.

I felt empty inside. I felt like my very heartstrings had been pulled taut as he flew towards that vortex, that strange void that seemed to exude energy as well as suck it in. I felt like my very soul had been ripped out through my chest as he was swallowed by the rift, his dark, strangely glowing form following the Gods, and the rest of Helovia's magic, into a land not our own.

I was hollow.

I did not notice the great winds, the deafening sounds, the darkness, at first. They buffeted my flight back, but I corrected my path with simple, single-minded determination to return home, to find some semblance of comfort in the misty throngs of my forest abode. I did not realise until I was almost home, that I had followed the galloping hooves of Smoke back to the borders and beyond, just as I had followed them to the Meadow in the first place. Wonder filled me, wonder at what exactly I had just witnessed. Slowly, I pieced together the fragments, lining up the fractured puzzle pieces to form a simple, childish solution.

The Gods had abandoned us.

The first question to surface in my mind was why? Why would they leave us? As I landed on the edge of our home, I noticed the new lights that illuminated the mists, the absence of the sun, when surely dawn should be upon us, the eerie emptiness that I realised was not only within me, but everyone, everywhere. Folding my scale lined wings to my side, I continued along the path the grulla mare had just dug into the ground by her rushed movement, nose dipped low and small hooves moving into a bouncy trot.

My golden gaze widened as a beacon of light appeared in the mists before me, brighter than the gentle illuminations that had appeared in our Sun's absence. The call that soon followed answered my initial, reflexive questions, as I recognised the voice to belong to Israfel. Though when I finally came upon them, mother and daughter, I did not recognise her. The filly had always been older than my sister and I, but there was something more about her now.

"Did he come to see you?" It was a question not directed at me, though I did tilt my tiara at it, curious to know the response - curious to know who 'he' was, though I am sure with some more careful thought I could have figured it out for myself. I continued to walk towards them, halting at a distance that spoke of intimacy without intruding upon their own. Tremors quivered down my hide, as if I were chasing insects from my pelt in the summer - but no insects landed upon me, nor did the cold bother me. No, these shivers were caused by something much more sinister, much more serious and everlasting.


"They are gone." The voice that erupted from my maw was softly spoken, hushed, as if speaking any louder than absolutely necessary would shatter the small hold on normalcy we grappled with right now. My words made the situation real, happening, undeniably true. Tilting my tiara once more, I curved my small neck away from the mother and daughter, and silently, speculatively observed the strange nuances of energy lighting the World's Edge.