» Hauntings & Healings

Ki'irha

When your time comes to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with fear of death. Sing your death song, and die like a hero going home.

She walks slowly over the land. She is broken, and lost, and frustrated. Mud sucks at her cloven hooves, rain flattens her curls slick against the nape of her neck, chill buries itself within her midnight hide. She is a hostage within this new land, stripped of her hearing and pride so soon after being thrown into the vicious portal, which reached to catch her and her family, gnawing at them and their magic and belongings and the few last mementos they held onto from home. Nobody was safe from the Rift’s jealous forces. Not love, not family, not material possessions.

Wandering aimlessly, she ponders life. She considers allowing the mists to eat her, the same way she considered throwing herself from the peak of the Falls. It is this desperate devastation that has brought her to this place, this hollowed ground, where life was lost and gained and now ready to be lost again.

She doesn’t hear the powerful snarls that rip free from the long-dead wolf god, nor does she hear him as he a attempts to chase the darkness away. She doesn’t hear the cries of battle brewing, and she certainly doesn’t know that she is wandering into a cataclysmic rage of light and darkness.

But she does notice them.

Time seems to slow for a moment as they approach. She tips her head to the side, tears slowly accumulating and making her vision swim. They are dark at first, barely there, but they are real. She can tell.

“Mo… Mother?” She is still, halted, silver gaze looking over the mare. She is as beautiful as the day she died. Draped in cobalt, milky grey mane pulled back in braids, warm brown eyes. She smiles, dropping her shoulders, moving her head, as if gesturing for her long lost baby to come home. Ki’irha’s eyes move, touching upon the younger stallion standing by her mother. He is just as strong and in his prime as the day he was killed, still black as a slick of oil, head proud as if he had done something to earn that self confidence. He smiles as well, tossing his younger sister a playful wink, as if begging to spar with her again. Towering above the form of both of them is the blackened form of her father, tall and strong, carved from stone, pelt the color of the bed of dead flames, speckled with white spots. His steely gaze is warm.

“I dont… I don’t understand. How are you?”

“There’s nothing to understand, darling.” Her mother’s voice, clear as day, rings through her ears. The starlit finds herself leaning forward.

“Just come home, little sis, it’s time.” This time it is her brother’s voice that comes to her, and a single one of her white-dipped legs moves forward slowly, as if she is walking through deep water.

“Ki’irha, my little dark star, we’ve missed you so. Come back to us.” Her father’s voice is a low rumble, gentle, kind, carrying a tone that he had only spoken to her with when she was a filly. It had burnt away as he had spiraled. She moves forward again, with more purpose. She looks at them, tears streaming down her face, heart quivering, body threatening to collapse.

’You can’t go back,’ something within her whispered, ’There is nothing to go back to. Your family is not here. You left them long behind. Their bones rest past the threshold. Do not fall for more of these tricks. You’re smarter than that.’ She shakes her head, eyes closing. This is a trick, an illusion. She wishes to return to them, but she knows the sick magic that rises off of the back of the Rift. She cannot succumb to her desire for her family. Mesec is here. Vesper is here. They are alive and real and all that she needs. She cannot abandon them. Not again. Looking again to their forms, they seem to waver.

“I can’t.” Her voice is hollow, desperate, nearly a cry. “You are not my family.”

“Now, Ki’irha,” her father’s voice bellows, “Enough with this foolishness. You have mingled too long with those damned equines, those feather-brained pegasi. You need to return to us. It is more evident now than ever.” His form flashes dangerously, transforming for barely a blink of an eye into a demonized creature, all teeth and bloodied light and talons, before snapping back to the form of her father. Her brother’s form does the same, and his eyes narrow. “Come play, Ki’irha, I know you’ve missed true competition.” A smile peels his lips away from his teeth. They are too sharp, his eyes too bright. He now advances, coming towards her.

Now it is her mother who moves, shooting forward, knocking her brother to the side. Her eyes are tear filled, begging, and her voice is pure light in the twisting shadows. “Ki’irha, my beautiful star, my beloved child, my daughter of summer night. You need to fight. Fight for me. Fight for Vesper. Fight for Mesec. You need to get out of here. Nothing good can come from this battle.” A frightful bellow rips from her father as he leaps forward, driving his horn towards the grey-maned mare. “Godspeed, starlit girl, find the light!” A scream rips from her now as horn severs her crowned head clean off, and suddenly her father and brother are upon her, biting, kicking, driving her back. The girl rears and scrapes the heavy air with her hooves, and eyes scan her surroundings for the first time, and she sees others fighting as well. She sees one she recognizes.

Erebos.

The northern prince, for that’s what he would always be, battled his own demons, and she knew that she was not alone within this horrific mess of sorcery. She leaps forward, horn aiming for her father’s broad chest, rear heels lashing out towards her brother’s lean form. A single electrified eagle erupts from her own chest, flying wildly towards her father’s face, hoping to burn and maim and kill whatever it was that was attacking her. She sees a skull-faced brute, one who looked so familiar, attempting to herd his own demons towards a seething black wolf who appeared to be made of smoke. With no idea what else to do, she decided to follow his lead, and wielding her sword wildly, she began to push her two haunts towards the heart of the shadows.
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