Time, Minthe thinks bitterly to herself, dragging her swollen body from the ocean. So much precious time… wasted.

The tide sweeps away from her, waves of deep pain moving in to take its place.

For months the fiery mare had hidden on the Crossing. She’d seethed in the aftermath of her encounter with the decrepit golden worm, first at the indignity of his capture of her - and then tenfold more when she realized it was worse than that, that the seed he’d planted within her had taken root. This was something she couldn’t ignore, or burn in the fire of her insatiable need for something greater than the hand she’d been dealt thus far. This stayed; it stole her figure, her comfort, her prospects in the Dunes, and - perhaps most infuriating - her ability to choose her own fate. She was supposed to be the one at the wheel, basking in the warmth of the desert sun and the heat of Maslakhat’s keen-eyed stare, and instead she spent the winter shivering and alone, round as an ostrich egg and utterly unremarkable to anyone that mattered.

So many aspects of her life wasted, all because of him. Rage, pain, or perhaps a mixture of the two rise up from the pit of her stomach and out, catching like sparks on dry kindling. Minthe manages a few more steps before they consume her, and as her legs buckle instinctively and grains of pearl-white sand speckle her dark red fur, she screams, losing control of even her own melodious voice.

Forced to give in, Minthe backs deep into the recesses of her mind, into the places where only shadows can reach her.

Pain of a different sort is what pulls her out. The mare jerks her head up at a sharp pinch near her flanks, and as the fog clears from her consciousness and the edges of her vision grow sharp anew, the reality of the situation comes into achingly stark relief. Blood scents the air around her, a metallic sort of tang meshing with the salt of the sea and the sweet blooms bordering the coast. She’s standing, somehow, and though a good portion of her coat is dry, her hind legs feel suspiciously damp, and sweat dots along her pressure points in little drops. Something feels… different, empty, almost, like a heaviness had been cut away from her.

Another pinch, and she reflexively raises a hind leg to kick the thing away, assuming a fly. What she makes contact with, though, is much more solid than that - and, as she recoils away from it, squealing in terror and fury, she looks upon the missing piece more fully, her face twisting into a mask of sheer, unbelieving horror.

”You,” Minthe hisses at the tiny, wobbling colt, shimmering gold streaked with the remnants of deep crimson afterbirth.

His plaintive bleat turns back her fluted ears. He takes a step towards her, understanding nothing else but her, this warm red creature come to sudden motion - and she stumbles back, nearly tripping over her own hooves, blunt teeth bared and snaking out to pinch the flesh of his narrow withers in decisive admonishment. “Back,” she commands, the word jagged as broken glass. He flinches, champing his teeth instinctively, but presses forth, determined - until Minthe’s next retaliatory shove comes hard and fast, sending him tumbling head over heels into the sand some feet away.

”Back, I said!” Her voice thunders over him, shocking him into place. Hatred pours out of her in rivers; she finds herself advancing, now, one slow step at a time, like a tiger stalking its frozen prey. “Foul creature,” she hisses, seeing not the helpless child, but the man who’d put him there. “Wretched thing.” Minthe looms over the colt, drowning him in her shadow.

“Vile, accursed beast,” she swears, and hoists her weight onto her hind legs.

Her front hooves come down quickly, the whites of her wild eyes stark against the narrow planes of her face. She doesn’t know what to expect - the crunch of bone under her, maybe, and the warm rush of fresh-spilled blood? The screams of the rotten fruit unwillingly borne from her sweat-slicked loins? Pain, regret, or sweet relief at a problem instantly, irrevocably solved?

None of it. All Minthe gets is the grit of sand in her eyes as she meets the hard-packed earth, nothing more.

Tears stream down her cheeks, and her breath comes in shallow pants. Her vision clears again, brow furrowing in confusion at the sight of the bare ground beneath her, and as she jerks her gaze towards a flash of movement in her periphery, she finds the colt some feet away. He looks at her, and instantly she knows something has broken between them. A chasm stretches, now, brought about by her own actions and too wide to cross. The child turns away from her, running as fast as his unsteady legs will go down the opposite end of the beach, and before she can second-guess herself, Minthe is turning away from him, bolting headlong towards the water.

She’s done with him, and so she flees, just like she always does, leaving the colt - shivering and alone - as he’d left her, all those months gone by.

He can’t tell how long he’s wandered, ocean on one side, sand on the other. All he can be sure of is the tiredness in his bones, the hunger in his stomach, and the fear of what might be coming behind him, driving him endlessly on. The pale boy doesn’t stop - he can’t stop, not until he comes across a mare, white but for a snatch of red and black upon her shoulder, speaking words foreign to his tiny ears but infinitely warmer than any he’d yet to experience. Like a moth to a flame he shambles forward, ignorant of the mess he crashes into and searching only for the promise of a life he might be allowed to live, given half a chance. The colt’s teeth clack together; weak, he answers the mare’s lilting voice with a whicker of his own, announcing his presence and hoping for peace.

He knows not what he witnesses, nor what he courts. He only knows the cold, unfeeling rejection of the one he briefly knew as mother, and the howl of the emptiness left by her sudden, inexplicable absence.