“Moonwalker,” he repeated, testing the name out. He liked the way it sounded, and the way it settled on his skin. It was the one name, out of all the others, that he would cherish, because it hadn’t been born of another’s hatred, or shaped from his self-loathing. Jezibelle, the one that was a mountain, she had given it to him. He turned, looking down the mountainside, and up it, and raised his head to the sky. Moonwalker! he wanted to shout, so that all the world would hear him, and know him, and bear witness to the struggle of a fighter and survivor. “Moonwalker,” he whispered it instead, expelled it gently in a cloud of breath, and let the winter wind carry it to the mountaintop.

His chest became tight, and he choked on a sob that he couldn’t quite subdue, or hold back. Her words they were beautiful, and they were just for him. And she spoke with such conviction, that even the Wolf, who had come to sink his fangs in deeper, turned and slunk away, tail between his legs and a vicious growl rumbling in his empty chest. Traitor. The word was spat at Balthazar, and he felt its sting before Jezibelle washed it away. “What makes a monster?” He muttered the words, wondered if there was even an answer for them.

She spoke again, said that she had been waiting. And her voice, it was singing to him.

“Why?” he asked, because he did not understand. Why had she waited nine years, for him? But he dipped his head, then shaking it, reprimanding himself. When a gift was given him, who was he to question it? Fair enough he had received only one real gift in his life so far, and so was unaccustomed, and unfamiliar, and did not know how to smoothly receive it. But he was not ungrateful, no. On the contrary, he had never been more grateful in his life. Not even when he’d been younger, during that time when those older than he manipulated him, and saw him as nothing more than amusement, finding satisfaction in his suffering. He’d always had his star waiting for him. But she wasn’t shining for him anymore. His heart cried out to the bleak winter sky. Please! Please don’t take my mountain too. I need her, I need her. I’ll do anything, everything… I’ll get it right this time. Please, please.

Balthazar shook his head, because the why was not significant. She had waited, and that’s what mattered.

“I am sorry,” he said. “To have kept you waiting.” They were words he had given her just earlier, but when he said them now, they were heavier, sadder, more substantial. They had been sincere before, but now, he spoke them from his heart, and they tasted like regret on his tongue. “Please,” he beseeched, and glanced at her face, so familiar to him now. And he thought of her waiting, and imagined disappointment in her eyes. And fear. And loneliness. And an ache, and a tiredness that he understood. Because of a stranger. Because of him. It hurt him, to imagine her like that. Stole the breath from his very lungs. “Forgive me.”

And she said more, and more and he didn’t know what to do. He wanted to give, he did, but much of what he had was hurtful, and that was the last thing he ever wanted to do, one of the things he’d never willingly do. Hurt. There was a healing, though, in the sharing of his pain. And maybe she was healing too. He hoped. He hoped. And he saw that she struggled when he drew near. And even though she had leaned closer in the end, he kept away, away, - don’t touch, just wait - because he didn’t want to make her suffer, didn’t want to feed her monsters. It would only break his already ruined heart.

“No,” he said, the word forcing its way out, determined, and stubborn in its defence and denial. “No,” he said, softer, eyeing the darkening clouds with apprehension, shivering in the sharp, cold wind. Instinctively, he moved closer, and shifted slightly, as if he hoped he might take the brunt of it, and shield the larger mare. “The Desert is sand, and blood, and bones. I can never go back. Would never want to. After what happened there… No,” he murmured the last word. His silver tail flickered into life. “I belong to my mountain now,” he explained, his eye seeking her face, his head tilted a little, as if in contemplation. “And will until the day I die.” The enormity of his words silenced him, as they settled into his skin. He shifted slightly, and everything fell into place, and he sighed, the smallest of smiles flaring brightly in his eye for just one second. And something about that truth had altered him, so that he was no longer weighed down so heavily by his monsters and his demons.

His words were a promise – there was hope and life in his future now. No more loneliness, no more emptiness.

Of course, he still didn’t know what exactly it would hold for him, but he was no longer so afraid. Because he had his mountain to turn to, when he was afraid, when he was weak, when he was hurt. He would come here, just as he had done when he was young and innocent, and he knew he would be safe. He turned to her, shifted again, so that if she wanted, she could tear away the space and emptiness between them with only a step.More, she had said. Tell me more. How could he refuse her?

“I used to imagine seeing the world,” he said, the ghost of amusement haunting his words. “I wanted to grow up, and explore, and discover.” He paused for a moment, nostalgia crashing over him, so that he heard the sound of waves inside his head. “In summer, I all but lived at the Falls. In spring the water tasted the sweetest. And in the autumn, the leaves turned gold, and red. Even before… The Desert had always been so dry and lifeless, and I came to love the Falls so much more.” He blinked, and his deaf ear twitched. “Just before I… left, I stumbled upon a hidden waterfall, tucked out of the way. And behind it was a cave, small and dark and damp, with hardly enough room for three. I found it again, now, and it is more of a home to me than the Desert ever was. Though, probably not the best place to spend the winter. The water is like ice.” His expression became troubled, and he lost himself in thought for a minute. Where else, where else could he go? The Meadow would fill him with nightmares of smoke and heat. The Commons then. Yes, he’d manage there, somehow.

He heaved a sigh, and it was happy, and it was sad. His story was coming to him in fragments, a jumble. “I remember a great forest burning on the mainland. And it spread to the fields, and my eyes stung from the smoke. I lost track of where they were, and I called until the poison air stole my voice, but no answer came. So I fled, and my coat was smudged with soot, and ash dusted my mane and tail, so that if I had not been dark and light as I am, the fire would have made it so, anyway.” He moved, turned in a half circle, took a few steps. “After Loup-Garou died, I distanced myself, because my mother said she’d never have another. And I was all he had left. Second-Born, with the blood of a king in my veins. I needed to grow up strong. So that one day I would follow in Gl- in h-his footsteps, and ultimately take his place.” Balthazar’s chest rose and fell, and his shoulders tensed. He gulped for air, and sought her, rolling eye found her forelock, her ears, her eyes, her muzzle, her beautiful face. “How could I take the place meant for my brother? I couldn’t replace him! And if I did become king, it would be a lie, and I would be a fake, a usurper, false and unworthy.”

Another deep breath – he drank in the fresh mountain air like it was the sweet spring water from the Falls.

“He came back from the dead.” The words fell heavily from his tongue, like lead. He’d still had two ears when he had come across the monster, who seemed to be hollow and dead inside. Death, there had been so much death that day. He had wondered how the sands hadn’t run red. “My brother had survived, and forgotten who he was for a long time. But he came back. He came back for me,” and he felt like crying, as he always did when he thought of his Day of Darkness. Until his chest hurt, until he couldn’t breathe, and longed for his heart to be ripped from his chest so that he wouldn’t feel the pain anymore. “He loved me still, even though I felt like I had betrayed him, thinking him dead for so long, for not making sure.” He trembled, and then fell still. “And he found out what she had done. He found out that our mother had abandoned me, neglected me, and lost sight of what she had, because she mourned him. So he killed her, to spare our youngest brother, who was himself only a colt. And then the monster came and killed my Loup-Garou.” His eye darkened again, as it had that tragic hour all those years ago. When everything around him, and everything within him had felt like it was burning, so that everything around him was dead, and everything within him was black. “And he came and told me. He came looking for me. And I knew, I knew. And I hated, and I fled. But I came back, and found him weak. So I sank my teeth in, and left him to die slowly.”

His head felt so heavy – he barely had the strength (or the courage) to look at her now. But he did, and his eye was full of fear. Was he a monster too? Would he see his fear reflected in her own eyes? Would she hate him, as he sometimes hated himself? “Is it a terrible thing that I am grateful for the fire, that may, or may not have killed my stars?” He whispered, because he felt wicked saying the words, being glad that he had lost the one who had been his mate, and their beloved daughter. “Because it drove me back here. To home. To safety.” And to you, he added silently. His tail was a silver stream as it snapped suddenly, and he bobbed his head, feeling as though he had said rather too much. His regret wasn’t that he had shared more than he had wanted to, no. For he wanted to give her all that he could, and all he had was his story and his heart, both of which he’d offer up to her if she asked, he’d be on his knees and give her everything he was. Rather, he feared that he had taken from her, while he had been giving. Taking the silence and filling it with his words, when it could have been filled with hers.

“And what of you?” Balthazar asked softly. He wanted to give her time for her own words, he wanted to take, and take them, and carry her voice in his heart and mind. But he did not want to push, want to hurt. No. Never! “You can speak, if you want. But if you do not wish to, then I will still be content just knowing that I am no longer alone.” He turned, eye on the sky again, his head moving slowly as he searched for the ever present celestial body that she had named him for. “Your Moonwalker,” he said in a low, hushed voice, as if the words were a secret, meant for her, and her alone. His gaze drifted back to meet her eyes. “He will never leave you, Jezibelle.” This was his oath to her. To his mountain, who had waited almost her whole life for him. “You don’t have to wait anymore.”