How long had it been? He could not be sure any more. When you could not see the rise and fall of the sun every morning and evening, time was an abstract concept: one that had little meaning or relevance.

The best frame of reference Het Vuur had to go by were the infrequent visits from his daughter. She always found him easily enough, for he rarely strayed from the low glens and thickets along the base of the mountain, and after the first few awkward attempts she quickly learned not to bring either of her own daughters with her. Much as he tolerated his grandchildren, Het Vuur prefered to tolerate them from afar. His mood was very sour and unsympathetic these days, and after all the time Inka had spent caring for him when he had first lost his sight, she was about the only horse he could stand to be around.

She was overdue now, though, and his mood had suffered even more as a result. He had hardly eaten anything in several weeks, or hardly moved from his sheltered bed of half-rotten pine needles. His hip bones poked out from beneath his dull, saggy hide, like the frame of a tent that had been poorly secured. He stunk of mud and dung, and his first grey hairs had begun to pepper his sunken face. His eyes were more clouded than ever - more white than amber - and his mane was beginning to clump together in a matted mess. Whenever Inka had insisted on grooming him, or finding for him some choice tufts of sweet grass, he had curtly refused. Let his body rot, he had thought. It was as much as he deserved.

With so much solitude and time at his disposal, his thoughts often turned to Sterre; it was unavoidable, really, and today - a crisp, dry afternoon that reminded him of Tinuvel - was no different. A part of him was still enraged at her: enraged that she had managed to fall pregnant, enraged that she had defied his suggestion to get rid of the thing, and enraged that she had walked out on him. Again. But as time had gone on, a part of him had also begun to feel satisfaction and guilt: satisfaction because her abandonment only served to prove his theory right - that she had been with him out of pity and she had another, younger and able-bodied stallion to spend her days with - and guilt because, well... what if he was wrong?

What if the child was truly his, as she had claimed? What if he had driven her away for good this time? What if... The thought made him shudder. What if she had taken his suggestion to throw herself down the mountain, and had not lived to see her belly free of its parasite? He imagined her somewhere halfway up the peak, her heavily pregnant body broken and smashed upon the rocks, their child dead inside her.

However angry he was at Sterre, and however much he hated that fetus, its death was not worth its mother’s. He began to think that maybe, just maybe, he could forgive its existence and Sterre’s hypothetical betrayal as long as he could see her again, safe and sound: even if she had nothing left to say to him but in the form of hooves and teeth.

With that, he realized he did not want to be alone any more. He had had enough.

The filthy, skeletal giant stumbled to his feet, grunting as his stiff legs resisted, and pricked his ears to listen. “Inka,” he growled, just in case the mare was nearby, but there was only a bird calling in the distance, and he could smell nothing but his own stench. He didn’t blame her. He wouldn’t want to be around himself either.

He had no real hope of finding Sterre ever again, but perhaps if he wandered a bit, he would come across his daughter or one of his granddaughters. Maybe even Impazienza. Hell, even a complete stranger would be better than nothing. He may not have been in any fit state to be seen, but they could lead him to the river, where he could bathe away all the guilt and muck from his coat. He was tired of feeling - and smelling - like shit. At least, that was what he planned to tell whoever he came across; really, he just wanted the company. When he was alone, he was his own worst enemy.

When he was alone, he thought of Sterre.

For the first time ever, he turned his sightless eyes toward where he knew the peak to be with the intention of climbing it. But the mountain caught him off-guard as he moved toward it, and he tripped up the first stretch of its incline. From then on, he traversed carefully, placing his big, chipped hooves with care and stopping to listen every so often for the sound of other horses. But the peak was quiet today. He travelled for a good hour or so without finding anyone, and though the going was slow he soon found himself trembling with the exertion of hauling his malnourished body up the rocky slopes. How big is this goddamn mountain? he complained internally, remembering why he had never bothered to climb it before now. Cliffs and slopes were treacherous at the best of times, and even more so for a horse who could not see where he was placing his feet.

Eventually he came to an area that seemed relatively wide and flat, and it was here Het Vuur stopped for a well-earned rest. He nibbled half-heartedly at a few shoots of grass, but his appetite was as absent as everyone else apparently was, and he soon gave up, instead settling beneath the sparse shade of a tree (which he discovered by walking face-first into it). But as he folded his legs beneath him with a groan, and closed his eyelids to the hidden world around him, something acrid and sour assaulted his senses: something stronger and more terrible than his own perfume of mud and dung.

Blood. A lot of blood.

Het Vuur kept very still for a few moments, his nostrils testing the air and his ears listening intently for the sound of the culprit. In his mind’s eye he saw a cougar, its mouth stained red from its kill and its eerie yellow eyes boring into him. He tensed, and waited for the cat to attack him. But no such assault came. There was no sound, no scent, or any other suggestion that there was a predator nearby. Maybe it’s an old kill. But it smells so fresh...

The stallion stumbled to his feet and warily, very warily, took one step after the other, his head low and all his senses piqued. He followed the scent of blood until, at last, he stepped in something wet. He almost recoiled, but pressed on until his hoof bumped against the body of a fallen horse. With his nose he gently touched it, but there was no reaction. He touched it again, lingering a little longer this time, letting the sensitive whiskers around his snout brush against the supple muscle and short, smooth hair of the horse. Whoever it was, they were good and dead. They did not yet stink of death, but their body was cold and stiff. They must have died maybe an hour ago. Poor fucker.

He was about to turn and leave when there was the sound of movement. Lifting his head, he listened to the sound of a small body squelching in muck. At first he thought it must be a small animal scavenging in the carcass, but then there was the unmistakable bleat of a foal.

Het Vuur froze. Fuck.

The mare could have been anyone, but his mind immediately went to one individual in particular. With his heart in his throat, he stumbled over the body and dropped to his knees in the mess of blood and afterbirth. He ran his nose desperately across the neck and jawline of the horse, willing himself to recognize the shapes and curves. But without his eyes, his useless eyes, there was no way to know for sure. “FUCK,” he exclaimed, his voice cracking as he grimaced and pressed his forehead against the mare’s cool, firm shoulder. For a few moments all was quiet but for the sound of the foal squirming in the grass beside him. Het Vuur’s brain was empty; he was at a loss for what to do.

Then the remnant’s of the mare’s scent, her identifying perfume, crept into his nose like a slow poison. The realization was gradual, but unmistakable, and Het Vuur went numb all over. Distantly he was aware of the foal - his foal - nudging at him plaintively, no doubt looking for food, but he did not react.

It hit him like a tidal wave. “You fucking idiot,” Het Vuur whimpered into Sterre’s shoulder. And then he screamed as if in agony. His big voice echoed off every surface on the mountain, as if the peak itself were lamenting the mare’s death. Unseen, their foal cowered at the awful sound, pressing his tiny, tremoring body against the same rock his dead mother leaned against.

Later, once the emaciated stallion had expended the remains of his energy grieving the loss of his ice queen, he stood facing the cliff edge with his nose in the air. The sun was setting now; he could feel its warm rays on his skin, providing some relief from the bitter cold wind that tousled his matted mane. Behind him, Sterre still lay in her grave of blood and grass. The foal had stopped squirming; for all he knew it was dead now too. But it didn’t matter.

Death was kinder, in the end.

As he stepped forward to take the advice he had given Sterre all those months ago, Het Vuur’s last thoughts were of their home back on Tinuvel. He missed the chill of it; he missed the wide open spaces; he missed the freedom and power and happiness he had felt there.

As his hooves stepped out onto open air, the chill of the wind rushing past him and the brief sensation of weightlessness were almost exactly what he needed. For a moment, he felt at home. He felt at peace as his body tumbled toward the forests below.

Then instinctual terror seized him and he opened his mouth to scream, but all the air had been sucked from his lungs.

I’m sorry, he thought, just before his body hit the treeline. He was briefly aware of branches snapping beneath his weight before all his senses were abruptly cut off.

Back up on the mountain, his son stirred into wakefulness.