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

   She held his gaze, and for that he eased her some owed merit. Many, even back in his own time, had found his gaze disconcerting for it's apathy, for it's similarity to the foggy gaze of a corpse. However he maintained his gaze with hers, as unwilling to look away as she was, though it was far easier to hold her own blue gaze, even if it rang of a similar yet lesser hollowness to his own. However, at last and at length she spoke, surrendering to his demand and stating her intentions shortly. He did not bother to hide his interest in the sharp prick of his ears, in the faint stir of brightness in his void eyes, the slight raise of his head as she extended her offer of home and hearth to him. Yet then...

   He laughed, mirthless and sharp, a shattered crystal sound that was barely loud enough to be called a laugh yet rung of humorless amusement and carried on the wind to her. "Thou think I bear the banner of a warrior?" He mocked, walking towards her with grace he did not feel, without the stiffness of his wounds he had shut down the pain on. "Thou doth believe, from a single spar, I harken to the call of war?" He would, if he needed to, but with that resounding hollowness in his chest came a wave of bitterness at the thought of partaking in further battle, of feeling that emptiness at his side and in his heart. He came to a stop before her, ghastly eyes flat as the grave and never once leaving her own. She thought him a warrior... he could laugh further over it, but as swiftly as it came his bitter laughter vanished before he had even moved towards her.

   "Thou offer thine home knowing nothing of who I doth be, of what I align to. I applaud thine determination, thine skill, but thou should'st be more cautious of whom thou offer sanctuary to." He warned. Why, he didn't know. It served him nothing to give her such warning, such glimpses of the shadowed raven beneath Vasher's mask. Perhaps he was simply curious as to what she would do with such faint signs, such a bitter foreshadowing. "Alas, I fear thou art but a day late. I come this way to pledge mine services to Denocte and the Night King." He flicked an ear, gaze still locked to hers, impassive and emotionless yet somehow amused. "If thou art from Solterra... I fear we shalt meet as foe once more."

   For some reason, it intrigued him to see how this mare rose to his baiting. He did not fear her physically, not with such a glaring injury like hers; if she attacked, he would simply cripple her and continue along his path once more with nary a care for her screams. He was far more interested in seeing if this mare would show skill aside from battle.

I am the villain of this story
What else could i ever be?