Tumbling down

You gotta have the patience and believe you're gonna make it
Gotta hold on

Tired and drained from her effort of trying to control the rampaging energies this accursed place had unleashed within her, Erthë herded the protesting colt back towards the Portal. Why she insisted on returning there was something she had not lingered over. Perhaps it was a vain hope that the vortex might suddenly open in the other direction again and let her return home to her own realm. Or that others might appear to bring further news of Helovia and its state. Or perhaps that she was still dreaming, stuck in a very realistic nightmare and any moment now her father or the Lady Moon would shake her and make it all go away, if she just stayed as close to them as possible.

It didn't really matter why anyway. One place was as good as any, for none of the regions here was home to her. The rainforest by the sea might smell and look like her Edge, and the white beaches might appear to be the same as the Endless Blue, but they would never truly be the same. Important key factors had been lost, nothing would ever be as it once was and for every dreary, wet, miserable day that passed, she withdrew further into herself. Turning her back on what scant light there was, as it was not the light she wished to see.

Once they entered into the forest, Erthë took the lead. Hard eyed and leery of every scent and sound she brought them northward, driving them on as quickly as the weak legs of her child could handle. When the sound of a voice nearby reached her, the little mare tensed and instinctively reached for the magical energies that pulsated within her, teeth searching for the handle of an ivory bow - before she remembered that it would be of no use.

Another thing the Rift had taken from her. The list was growing long.

"Who speaks?" she asked, with a sharpness to her voice that she had not intended. It made her sound older, tired, the timbre and tone so similar to her own mother's that Erthë's gut clenched with longing.

She was the mother now... the notion was so strange that she still could not quite wrap her head around it, even as she held out her burning wings to block the path to the colt behind her.

I know you're tired of surviving but you gotta keep on trying
Hold on!