Common

"S-shit."

Kore's swearing fills the air before her, irritation manifesting itself into foggy clouds as it leaves her ashen lips. She huddles amidst a cluster of trees, using their thick trunks and bare branches to block most of the frigid wind. She was hoping the lack of foliage above her would have allowed a bit of sunlight to drape across her back and warm her, but it had been hidden by clouds for most of the day, and with the heavens growing dimmer she knew it would be gone soon entirely, headed for the other side of the world. Would Aidoneus see it, wherever he was? Would it shine for him?

The Arabian had waited out the storm on Atlantis, hunkering down until the sea turned back to shimmering turquoise and the foam-capped swells lost their vigor. She journeyed to the Crossing the moment she was able to, and when she made landfall she followed her heart to the one place it still yearned to be. She found it: a divot along the shoreline, cloaked in darkness, where wooden limbs knotted together. So, too, did she tie herself there: alone at first, and then several times over with golden-eyed Aidoneus. She remained, floating around that spot through the rest of autumn like a ghost tethered to the remnants of their past... but he did not come. His scent had faded long ago from the small, enclosed space they'd called their own, nary a coarse hair or saucer-wide hoofprint in the sand left for her to remember him by, and as winter crept slowly across the main island she knew she could not stay. Just as in the Shore, there was nothing here for her. Nothing but loneliness and sorrow, and the yawning abyss of her failure to keep her loved ones close.

She ventured farther southward, a dandelion seed floating in the breeze. Her coat, adapted again to tropical climates, had not thickened nearly as much as it needed to, and with Aidon not around to share his body heat, she had to seek it where she could find it. Kore knew the Common had its dangers, but she couldn't go back to Atlantis, and she wouldn't go back to Salem, where Maslakhat - as far as she knew - still ruled much of its shifting sands. The last time she'd been in the Common was when she met him. She shivers - whether against the cold or the memory of his burnished aureate form, she can't tell. The girl he'd plucked amongst the long, green grasses felt like someone totally different, anxious and broken and looking for comfort wherever she could find it. She's still broken, but in other ways. And with the tide of her estrus dragged back out to sea, and years of experience bringing purpose and intention to every fluid movement of her catlike silhouette, Kore feels no fear for her safety. Not from herd stallions, or the bachelors living so close she could smell them, sometimes, if the breeze faced the right direction. No: if the recent past had been any indication, it was they who should be afraid of her.

The bay tucks her chin to her chest, trying to conserve her energy. She closes her eyes, attempting sleep, but a million tiny, icy pinpricks begin to fall upon her skin, lasting even as she tries to twitch it away. Her lids snap back open. White blurs her vision, bringing her to shake it away, and when whatever was clinging to her long lashes has dissipated she can see flurries of pale specks drifting from the clouds. Snow?! "Oh, c-c-come on," Kore groans around chattering teeth, stomping a hoof, and leaves her pitiful shelter in a huff, searching for something better.

She moves deeper inland, going until a rock face juts up to stop her. Her path trails along it, meandering until the cliff recedes back into itself. The cavern's mouth yawns wide open, dark against the snowfall's alabaster backdrop and sending curls of warmer air to lure her gently in. The mare pauses at the entrance. Her pupils strain to see within its depths, but nothing lurches up to take her, and that coupled with a strong gust at her back all but pushes her across the threshold.

Her hooves clatter on the hard stone floor, taking her beyond the reach of the outside world. Kore parks her small form near the wall, facing the cave entrance, and watches the snow as it gathers in softly-sloping drifts. She likes how it seems to settle over everything, muffling all sound, and leaves the Crossing eerily quiet in its wake. So quiet, in fact, that when the hum of another's rhythmic breathing comes to her from behind, reverberating off the limestone, it rings as loud as thunder in her black-tipped ears. Kore whips around towards its source, ivory-streaked tail held aloft, and whickers into the gloom. "Hello?" she calls, stoic and unflinching, and waits for her future to reveal itself, piece by jagged piece.