So this was it. 

A small, sad smile played over the stallion's full, darkened lips as he stood upon the sands, gazing out at the sea with the lowering sun casting golden nets of light upon his back. He stood there in silence, shadow stretching long before him and reaching out to the hissing waters like a child reaching for their mother. Ah, but the mother retreats again and again, leaving behind her brood, came his bitter thoughts, brow creased and eyes heavy with the weight of something akin to resentment. Camdis Lohir wondered yet again what it could have been to stay behind, to be a father to his children, to not know regret with every beat of his heart and loathing with every breath. 

The mother returns, though, again and again. The father, on the other hand...

His thoughts trailed off as his throat became thick, emotion clogging his ability to breathe for a moment before he clamped those tumultuous eyes shut, shoving it all away. Yes, he was running from the past that still dogged his heels. Yes, he would continue to ignore the grieving process. Yes, he would convince himself that he was doing the right thing when everything in his wretched heart screamed that he was wrongwrongwrongwrong like a distorted lullaby. 

No, he was never going to face those voices and he would never face his own heart. 

Some demons lurked too close to the truth, and some truths were too big, the drop too far, the depths too deep. 

Camdis Lohir feared what would happen the day his past caught up to him.

But for now, here, on the edge of the world, he would find what respite he could. He would release what he could into the salt and foam of the sea and pray that it did not return to him, as the sea did the shore. He would pray that eventually, somehow, he could be free of himself. 
                                                                                                                                                                                                      

He watched as she descended, graceful as a nymph dancing along the back of winds. A dove dressed in shades of amethyst and gold - she was a fair creature, elegant and awash in delicate beauty. She was a song come to life, dizzying and dazzling and all other colors of lovely. Her touch down upon the sands was feather light and as decadent as her image. Dainty hooves pressed crescents into the sand as she approached, effortless in her grace and breathtaking in her poise. Even her voice was melodic, a lullaby drifting over the sound of sea and wind.

If only the gods had gifted her with kinder company, for the ease with which she wore her kindness only served to pull Camdis' lips into a frown. Didn't she know he deserved none of her soft words? None of her gentle questions swathed in genuine curiosity? Didn't she realize that he was a damnable wretch, worthy of none of the friendliness that she so readily offered with those burning, beautiful eyes?

He hated her for her perfection, for her softness in the face of such a cruel world, for her strength in remaining kind and open even as the self loathing that Camdis held in his chest had infected his very core. He wanted to cradle her, to break her, to give her love that he didn't have, to justify watching her crumple at his hooves.

He wanted to hurt her because he knew it would hurt him more. To she, the swan with the shimmering soul, he was a lone creature, a wraith that could be forgotten in time; but to him? She was what he was not, she was the representation of what he had cast aside in the face of his weakness and his guilt. 

It was not her fault, but he could pay pretend as well as any child.

And so he glared at her, pulling every aching ounce of vehemence from his breast and channeling it into his storm cloud gaze, praying that she didn't see the hurt that lurked beneath that disdain - because he needed it, that agony; it was the closest thing to repentance that he could touch. 

"Leave me," His voice was a hiss, a shard of glass thrown without direction but with intent to harm, to wound. "You know nothing of me. I could hurt you, you stupid creature. I am a stranger, I am not what you wish for. Leave me."
                                                                                                                                                                                                     

He was a creature of nightmares, spattered with the blood of an innocent and full to overflowing with a relentless, feral rage. Stormcloud eyes flashed in a promise of destruction, of lightning to set ablaze all that stood in his way. Muscles tensed and pulsed beneath shining flesh, coiled and ready to spring while blunted teeth ground together with an agonizing force and a wretched ideal. Camdis had learned long ago that to be anything outside of cruel, of distant and cold and hateful, was to let others see the truth of him, and the truth of his own self was not something that the scarlet and onyx stallion could bear. 

So instead he lied, he lied every second of every day; to himself, to his peers, to his wife and his children. He lied to Caligo he lied to his nation, he lied in hopes that they would finally see him for the wretch he was, not the crawling, squirming weakling that he was born to be. Not the stallion who had caused centuries of tradition and prosperity to crumble around then-thin shoulders. Not the stallion who had betrayed his very birthright, the song that his blood sang for him and the melody his soul had yearned for. No, he would become something worse than what they would expect, something all the more terrifying than a tyrant and a failure. 

Yet, with all of his anger, all of his bitterness and hostility, how could he still feel so powerless?

How could he still feel a victim of the circumstances that he brought upon himself with every beat of his heart and every breath through his lips?

The blunted words of the songbird brought all of that and more to the forefront of his mind, nearly ripping the truth from his lips of its own accord. I'm sorry, he wanted to say, I'm sorry that I'm terrified of myself and that I take out my loathing on you. Camdis wanted to fall to his knees before her, to soak the sand with his tears, to repent, to repent, to repent. To apologize to her and all those that came before her,

And all those that he knew would come after.

You don't deserve this. You deserve the world, you deserve everything good. All things good.

And as his tongue became stiff, sticking to the roof of his mouth with a force that nearly choked him, his muscles clamping about his frame, holding him as a broken and crumbling statue before the sea and her beautiful, glowing daughter, Camdis prayed that she would not see the turmoil beneath his skin. 

For he did not deserve understanding, care, empathy. He deserved no pity as a man, he deserved no pity as a wretch, he only deserved the shame and pain that came with lashing out at those around him. He deserved the self hatred that bled from his heart as he watched another creature hate him. 

He deserved only what he had wrought and nothing more. 

Yet she had not lashed out at him in the face of his cruelty, she had remained steadfast despite the hatred he had flung at her feet without the hint of remorse that roiled so thickly between his bones. A tiny part of him whispered that he should stop, that he could just leave her with her questions and her kindness, let her hate him as she watched his damnable hide crawl away and into the approaching dusk.

But his lips betrayed him, his weakness surfacing at the siren's song of the woman's voice, at the scent of Caligo's court upon her skin and the sorrow that brimmed his soul.  

"I have, and I've followed it's pull to here, the Edge of the World," His voice was soft, lacking its previous vehemence, though he could not meet her eyes. Instead, he gazed at her dainty hooves, wishing for all the world that he were a different stallion with a different past and a different heart, so that he could treat her well, "And I have found nothing save some arrows carved into a tree trunk, a little witch, and a amethyst colored bird who is kinder to me than she should be." It mattered not to Camdis if the woman realized that he was talking about her as he turned his gaze back to the sea, warring with himself on what to do next, where to go next. He could not stay here before the ocean and all of her secrets, could not stand with his hooves sinking into soft sands with a winged woman at his side who he simultaneously wished to harm and hold. 

"I don't think it's a good idea for you to be here," his words were barely above a whisper, though they were not unkind, "I want to make you hurt, but that's a lie." There was a pause, "I want to make you happy, but that, too, is a lie."

Camdis' next words were directed at the mare, but he knew that it was not she who he sought guidance from. 

"I want to know what to do. About everything."