Tornados from a butterfly's wing
The ragged edges of her breath smoothed after a few more moments. It was sinking in, that it was over. They had faced the night, and walked though to the other side more or less whole. It seemed impossible, but the sun was shining, and she was pressing her cheek to a very real, living and breathing Yanhua.
She sighed relieved, their family accounted for. Changed, maybe. In ways she was certain they'd only just began to discover, that would reveal themselves in the days (and nights) to come. For now though, it was enough to simply be alive.
It was too much to ask that they all be so lucky. The little mare pulled back just slightly, mouth a thin, sad line. "I'm so sorry, I... I didn't see her, but there wasn't much time." No time to look for lost relatives, or missing friends. She would have though. If she had known, she'd have searched every inch to find his mother. To spend more time with her own. Starlight, but she hadn't even told Neverwhere that she was a grandmother.
She became aware of the gentle tugging on her hair, the straightening and detangling of a mane that had surely been neglected these past moons. Beauty lost in a fugue of exhaustion and stress and sorrow that had gone on far too long to be healthy. Her head dipped, giving him further access and giving her the opportunity to press her lips into the golden hair of his chest. Her North Star, her guiding light.
"I am, but what else is new?" She asked with weary amusement. Tired, that had been their common experience since the sun had sickened. Tired and scared, tired and angry, tired and hopeless. Every other emotion had been muted by the effort it took to feel.
Black and verdant wings, thin as dry leaves and ragged at their edges, fluttered with the tiniest of breezes. She didn't want the think about this. Didn't want to relive the darkness, her own death. It was not a cruel question. There was no menace in it, and she knew it. Still, she hesitated to reply.
"We split up on the mountain. I don't know where the girls went, but I was meant to be a distraction. It didn't work." She said at last. "Then we split again. A river or a cliff, and I went for the cliff. It... It felt most like home, and I missed home so much. I was already dead, I think? But it didn't matter. They arrived, an-and," she couldn't say it. Couldn't describe how it felt to be torn to pieces by a mob of teeth and claws. "And then I woke on the beach, with my friend here, and the sun was shining."
It sounded like a bad dream. One with a hopeful ending that she didn't quite believe in yet. Was it the sun's turn to shine indefinitely? Or would things go back to the way they had been, the sun and moon returning to their daily dance. She wasn't sure which she'd rather yet.
...Amarine
@[Yanhua]