Ouroboros

Virga... Today, you are without the girl. You don't know where she is, but you know you could find her if you needed to. You know she would find you if she needed you. So you walk alone, once more a dark presence in the southlands. Once more aching with every step you take: for what you've lost. For what the Rift took. A soft silence hangs from the trees. No snow falls, but white pillows the ground and smothers the branches. Your breath is a soft cloud around your muzzle. Your footsteps are a trail of holes punched through the white, broader and heavier than the steps of smaller animals, but your steps are light. You: a black smear on the whiteness of snow. No silver feathers tip your wings. Just: the narrow thrust of your black horn. The cold lights of your black eyes. Disdain curling your mouth into a hard, crooked line as you blink at the trees. You hate them. You hate everything about this place. In a way, you suppose, you are hunting. You do not expect to find your quarry here, though. You don't even know if it continues to live, or if it can be killed. But thinking about it, about crushing its ugly face beneath your hooves, about driving your horn through its heart, through its lungs, through its eyes, makes your heart beat a little faster. You don't remember wanting anything more than you want to kill the Rift's beating heart. Its scheming mind. You dream about him. But today is not the day you find him. Today, you wander the forest, alone and silent, and you want to wreck something but you're tired, too. Tired of being angry, of missing your family, of living without the wisdom of the gods. You pause now to stare up at the cotton sky, frowning against the cold, and your heart hurts when you think of the moon. Of running across the valley of the unicorns. Even of your sister.... A push of breath, unsteady. "What am I supposed to do?" But you know she won't answer you. She is gone. She is gone, a wound in the world and in you, and you ache with it so much you want to tear everything apart. light shines brighter in the dark

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