"If Love himself weep, shall not lovers weep,
learning from what sad cause he pours his tears?
Love hears his ladies crying their distress,
showing forth bitter sorrow through their eyes
because villainous Death has worked its cruel
destructive art upon a gentle heart,
and laid waste all that earth can find to praise
in a gracious lady, save her chastity."

She focused on the distant chirps. High-pitched, tender calls streaking through the sky, the volume fading as the gang of ospreys took flight from the trees overhead. Macabre's chestnut lobes flicked forward and back, listening intently for the rustle of feathers in the birds' wide wingspan, for the blows of air that flapped back with each gentle thrust into flight. She needed her mind to stop working. She needed the trees and the earth around her to stop spinning.

She was alone again, the scent of Dexter, her vagabond owner, had drifted away with the seasons. For a while Quinn tailed her, dropping in to check on her every now and again, but as Dexter's son aged, his interest in following a melancholy mare that even his father had forgotten about, had waned. She was homeless all over again.

She wasn't sure what it was that propelled her to seek out the Peak. Perhaps it was a the vague memory of Inka, a stout mare who'd shown her just a glimpse of kindness some time ago. She was the first stranger to do so -- with no strings attached -- and for that, Macabre had been grateful. At the time, Inka was a welcome distraction from the dull and tragic life the mare was leading. The longer Inka had hung around the more hopeful Macabre became, even though she knew the interaction was only temporary. There had been a bit of hope there, a pang that beat firmly in her chest that made Macabre want to follow Inka home like a lost puppy. She was eager to prove herself worthy in someone else's eyes.

Leaf litter and moist dirt still clung to the mare's shaggy coat. Twigs and burs stuck to the knotted tresses of her flaxen mane and tail. But Macabre didn't care. She didn't care what she looked like. She hardly cared about anything anymore.

She was somewhere else - anywhere else, when the rustle of a woodland animal began to chip away at whatever interior wall that had built up there, holing herself up from the rest of the world. Chocolate colored lobes flick forward and back as her body begins to register the sound, instincts slowly drawing her out from within herself. Marbled eyes blinked in quick succession, blinking away the warm tears that welled in her bottom lid, her vision clearing from a haze. She realizes she had stepped into unknown territory, an rock laiden area that reeked of those of her own kind.