show them the joy and the pain and the ending; Ajatar

[Ajatar]

ajatar

devils speak of the ways in which she'll manifest;
angels bleed from the tainted touch of my caress.

The grief that hits Ajatar at the mention of his name almost eclipses the rest of her sentence - Son. She stands before the mare that gave birth to Ajatar's only friend, the one she killed. No, she does not blame her mother -she blames herself. If she wasn't so perverse, wasn't such a monster, she wouldn't have been a weapon for her mother to wield. If she hadn't found friendship in the blue stallion he wouldn't have tried to intervene. He would be alive.

Ajatar feels all this with the weight of a girl who doesn't know how to mask her feelings. She is still a girl, after all, and Longclaw was a dear friend despite his shortcomings. She remembers him so fondly, in a way that only a child can remember someone. Her face breaks then, tears well up behind her wide eyes and spill down her cheeks.

"Oh, I am so sorry," she begins, a rush of words that fall unbidden from her lips. "I tried to stop her, I wasn't strong enough...it's all my fault. All of it. And you! Lost a son... I can't..." The tears fall too fast for her to finish. She makes no move for solace from the mare, she expects nothing from her. Ajatar knows she is evil for what she's done, what she couldn't prevent, and she's accepted that fate and burden.