Falls

"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."

His question echoed through the depths of her mind. Daybreak was just around the corner, and the bright, twinkling burn of the stars overhead were beginning to fade. In just a few hours, the sun would break the horizon, and its rays would be begin to wake the earth for a new day. For Macabre, that means she'd log yet another night of no sleep, of mindless wandering, of unnerving treading water in her motionless life. It was as if this was just one long day, even though the sun set and rose again and again. A long day that refused to end. She was stuck here, in this purgatory in the wake of her grief. The void that came after the death of her son wasn't quite so harsh these days, but her life had yet to start again.

Even though Shiraz had been her first child, this cycle was eerily familiar. It was as if the small mare had been reliving the same tragic moments over and over again, even if they manifested in new forms each time, since the Great Flood. Maybe it was her. Failure to launch. And then relaunch. Maybe she preferred to remain lost. It was easier than the stress of making the wrong decision. But as she ambled on, in this numb and ever drowning life cycle, she was losing the feeling of what it meant to live at all.

She was cursed.

"It's certainly easier, to remain lost." She speaks in a tone barely more audible than a whisper. Her marbled eyes search for his in pre-dawn shadows, but she can't make them out. This stranger makes her feel comfortable in unsettling ways. There were no pleasantries, no fake faces to be worn. Instead they existed how they really were, broken in some ways, in front of one another. All of it made her want to follow him home. "Are you lost, Vaaco? Or what brings you to the islands?" She feels guilty for asking another question, for keeping him here. The stallion is clearly exhausted and is in need of rest. The mare takes several steps toward him, her soft skinned nostrils flaring as his heavy musk reaches her and there she stops. "Perhaps I could help find you a place to rest your head for a while. The sun will rise soon."