Famous Last Stand

Amarantha's ears twitched as a faint noise broke the stillness. It was the crunch of hoarfrost and  leaf litter underfoot. So faint as to be barely perceptible.

Slowly someone came into view. A pale filly appeared. One of the Erienuin? Had Amarantha somehow found her way home? But no, the hope died almost as soon as it had been born. This was a stranger,  with wings and no horn.

With the sureness of a practised healer, Amarantha read the tale suffering, starvation, and hardship written in the little filly's delicate, stunted features. Clearly, this was a harsh, dangerous, place. But equally clearly this child - no, on second glance she was older than her size might indicate, a yearling maybe? - was not one of those dangers.

It was the first friendly face she had seen in a long time. Or at least, the first one that wasn't trying to kill her.  It was more than she had dared to hope for. Slowly she rose up, front legs first, and then the hind ones.

The stranger asks her if she's hurt, and Amarantha does a quick mental inventory - blood loss, pulse thready and rapid, numerous puncture wounds - painful, but not deep enough to be dangerous - bruising on her neck, chest and shoulders, luckily no broken ribs, and, of course, bone-deep weariness. Not good, but not fatal  She gingerly shifted her weight into her injured leg and winced. The tendons are swollen and painful but, luckily, not torn.

"I..." she stops, startled by her in voice after so long.

"I'll live. I'll just be limping for a few days. Maybe less, if I can heal it. I was... am... a healer." Even after everything that she's done, Amarantha still thinks of herself as a healer, first and foremost.

Throughout this conversation, Amarantha had been aware of a vague sensation of uneasiness. A directionless sense of being watched. Now, as her words died away, she felt as though her very soul were being wrenched apart. Suddenly thrashing on three legs, she looks around wildly, but see nothing.


"Is it you? Are you doing this?" she demands of the stranger. "Make it stop! Please!" she begs, as she feels all that she holds dear, all that she is, evaporate away like morning mist.

A low moan escapes her, hollow and broken. She reaches for her magic but she already knows.    "It's gone" she whispers. All her healing, her only remaining purpose in life, is gone.

It makes a horrible, chilling, sort of sense. Amarantha had once forsaken her calling, and now her calling had forsaken her. All that remained was darkness and death.

Amarantha

You were named for the Amaranth
Whose bloom means life unending
And whose name means Love Lies Bleeding

@Eira