And at once I knew, I was not magnificent [Any/All]

[Ledger]

A straggly wanderer, tangled tendrils of flaxen hair whipping against his neck. Framing his face as the golden flecks in his dark brown eyes gleam within the beams of the setting sun. Everywhere was white, snow had fallen and covered everything from sight. Turning from autumn to winter in a single night. Here he stood, knee deep in the snow. A single speck of red in the illuminating world of white. He had returned. Not because he had found inner peace. There was no forgiveness for those that had taken the few things he had ever loved. Magnus’s death had been years ago and yet still left an empty void in his heart. The flaxen chestnut stallion was so young in the flesh but his eyes held the fatigue of one that had experienced too much of life in such a short time. So much trauma, pain, and grief. He had wandered for so long, had seemed to explore to the end of the earth and back. He had seen much, learned much, grown wiser and kinder with each experience he had with complete strangers and every morning that he awoke alive in one piece. His wanderlust over the past years had given him the closest thing he had ever experienced to happiness. Yet he still longed for that he could never attain. The thing that had been so cruelly ripped away from him at birth and then later on when he had been reunited for that short, but wonderful, time with his father. Love. Family. It had been in the Gates that he had finally been able to tell Magnus who he was, the long lost son he had with Raaquel who had been so viciously murdered on the cold sands of the beach. Her murder he can barely remember although Chernobyl’s voice still haunted his dreams. Liberette’s betrayal might have been worse… She who had so many opportunities to bring them together and chose not too. Maybe because she didn’t want to lose him, he doubted it. It wasn’t as if she had been the best adoptive mother to begin with. His breath hangs in the air, frozen mist as he exhales before the coldness fills his lungs. He had returned to the Gates because he had no other place to go, finally tired from his adventures. Travel worn. Exhausted and ready to take off his shoes and rest his sore feet by the fire. Trim down his beard. Take a bath. All the comforts of home. The Falls held too much pain for him to go back there. Heaven though was the place where he had once had a real father. Heaven’s Gates. He looks up to the clouded sky, swollen and gray with the threat of another snowstorm. A soft whisper from his parted lips. ”I see you Dad. You found love here once. Maybe I will too.” L E D G E R