[P] waiting for that morning sun

[Ammon]

   Bitter was the pill he had been forced to swallow, the realization that something within him had cracked, fragmented like ruptured glass. That something in his chest throbbed with a hollow ache that not even his dimmed outrage could appease; a dark abyss that choked the breath from his lungs and left his sharp mind reeling before the onslaught of sheer emptiness. It was as if he stood on a precipice looking down, and the world begun to tilt beneath his hooves to send him careening into that void. He moved from the Steppe with stiff, robotic strides, his eyes gone from the world in favor of his own introspection. He tried to analyze that emptiness, tried to place it among the other, neglected, emotions dimly flickering through his soul, but it defied his mind in it's complexity. It was not just the thought of the one most beloved to him that helped the void grow like a fat maggot on rotting flesh. It was many things, culminating into one sodden mass flavored with nothingness and despair. It was the loss of his magic, so integral to his being and his passion. It was the loss of the warm gold that would drip from his antlers and fade away when it fell from his body. It was the loss of his country even when they betrayed him. And finally, it was the loss of the one he had held most dear, lost by his own pathetic inaction.

   It was also, strangely, a sort of loss of his innocence.

   Innocence, perhaps, not of the sort like a child or a virgin might have, but the innocent and naive trust he had wholly placed in the hands of his masters, his beloved, himself. It was a solemn thought, a dreadful realization, and with a sharp jolt and flash of pain from his clotting wounds he returned to the world to find himself no longer in the Steppe, but rather once more in that endless sea of soft grass he had arrived in. This time, however, there were differences. The green grass was beginning to brown by the relentless sun now masked by grey clouds, and the wind held the spice and chill of autumn in silent warning of the changing seasons. He paused and lifted his crowned head to the wind, tasting that soft breath of fall, drawing on it to steady himself.

   That was when he saw her. She was easily seen on the flat landscape now that he had focused his gaze on the world, her limping gait closing the distance, stubbornly pursuing him. He braced, turning 'round to face her with neck arched and tines pointed towards her, but she maintained a fair distance from him, making no move to approach further. Although he raised his head and moved to relax the tension coiled in his spine and haunches, his guard had slammed up, ghastly eyes watching her with apathetic emptiness. Her lips moved, but her words were delayed by the breeze. 'You're quite skilled.' He waited for more, one ear flicked towards her, his own voice silent and still. Was that all she had to say? She had hobbled so far from the Steppe, risking exaggerating her injury, just to compliment his skill? He doubted that strongly. "Speak thine intentions or bother me not, thou should concern thineself with thine injury." He called back, his forward-pointed ear flattening back against his dark locks, and he allowed a look of annoyance to cross his features.

   'Vasher', as he was, had little tolerance for word games. (An irony that never ceased to amuse the raven.)

 

Let them curse my name
but remember the truth

MUSONART

@Seraphina