The humidity on Atlantis felt oppressive after the Cove’s thin mountain air, and the brightness of its sun was almost painful to his eyes. Compared to the bleak grey world of Tinuvel, the Ridge was a riot of color and sound and smells. A place so full of life that it was all but bursting at its stone-and-jungle seams. Bursting with the laughter of children and the haphazard mélange of many small, colorful bodies. Bursting with the equally assorted— if more sedate— adult equines who’d come to call this place a refuge. And bursting with the vigilant energy of its Guardians; a silent, expectant sort of quiver that hung in the air like the crackle of electricity that preceded a storm.

But as his dark body rose up the thin strip of its shore— as his hooves scrabbled for purchase amidst the white-foamed fingers of the waves— Hades sensed the differences in his home, and froze. Panting shallowly in the dense moist air, the young stallion angled his body west first, bright eyes skimming along the sands until they ended in a sheer wall of stone. Then in a swift motion, he spun around to face the east, following the curve of the beach until it yielded to dark soil and a dense curtain of green. Then finally— finally— the boy’s fear-rimmed gaze lifted to the jungle that lay beyond, searching its shadows for signs of the life he and Finch had left behind only days ago.

And found nothing but emptiness staring back.

Panic struck the liver chestnut with enough force to knock the breath from his lungs, but it also broke whatever force had bound him motionless in the surf. Hades began to move inland, drawn towards the faint trail that wove from the beach and into Atlantis’s heart. He drifted along like a creature trapped in a nightmare, terrified of what he might find ahead and powerless to stop the forward flow of his body. He drifted much as his own mother had done only a day ago, following her beloved shadow into the sea even as every cell in her body screamed at her to stay. But for Rougaru’s near-grown son, there was no promise of peace or even purpose at the end of his path. There was no relief in knowing that his actions were for the sake of those left abandoned. Instead, there was only a desolation that grew and grew in his heart until it could have matched the emptiness he found.

Because there was no-one waiting to greet him in the meadow where he’d grown up but the ghosts of his own memories. Not Rivaini or Faolain. Not Selune and Vesper. Not Ruger and the small herd he’d brought with him only seasons ago. Even the crowd of children was missing. Everything he'd ever known— everyone he’d ever known— was gone.

And in their absence, the Ridge was as silent and hollow as the boy who called it home.