black horse reaping;

Years had gone by and each one wormed another hole into his heart. What was left of it, at the very least. These days he felt more empty than ever. He could see her ghost everywhere he went and hear the soft melody of her laugh on the breeze, teasing him to follow her.

Where?

The edge of a cliff sometimes, into the swamps, down into the rocky ledges where great carrion birds swooped down with sharp talons. He could feel her all around him and yet, she was gone. A wisp of smoke caught and pulled a million miles away—her voice haunted his dreams, he hadn’t slept in what felt like a lifetime. The soft touch of her muzzle, the harshness of her teeth, the way she used to meet him near the waterfall at the edge of dawn.

He had lived and he died—

A thousand times over, a hundred times more. No more than a shell of who he used to be, quietly picking at the skeleton of that former self. She said there was no place she could hide that he couldn’t find her—she said a lot of things—but he’s still looking. His eyes are dim, he thinks, his eyes are rotten fruit sitting in their aching sockets.

He’s tired of trying, tired of feeling. Hooves sore, muscles caught. The faint outline of his ribs under sun reddened black, the gentle slope of his hips and the knobby bone of his tail. Gael slinks along the ridges of the mountains. They build themselves up higher and higher, these great giants, their sleeping heads covered in a thin mist. Here is where he had met her, here is where he had avoided coming back to for so long—this was here, after all, this was all she had ever been and what did he hope to find here? Perhaps his own body where his soul had left it behind, or perhaps some confirmation that she was real.

And yet,

He hardly wanted her to be real. He preferred to think of her as another phantom, one more thing from his past to taunt him. The black stallion makes his way deeper into the home of the free mares, he struggles to step over the rocks and the tiny cracks. The Peak would never welcome him, of that he was sure, but maybe they would listen.

Gael was not here to find Corinth—no, he knew better than that—but to speak with the current monarchy about another matter altogether. He had questions and he knew they would have the answers. Still, he is careful here, and when he feels he has come to the heart of the territory, Gael stops in his tracks.

His blocky head lifts on an all too thin neck, his ears listen but do not comprehend. It was so long ago now, too long—a century, he thinks, or maybe more. "Hello,” he shouts into the swirling fog tumbling down from the higher reaches of the mountains, “I need to speak with your leaders. My name is Gael and I have not been here in many years.”

Does he dare say he was Corinth’s lover? Her—what was it again? He couldn’t say her name, it burned his tongue, it itched his throat. Instead, he lowered his head in a sign of peace.

gael