"If Love himself weep, shall not lovers weep,
learning from what sad cause he pours his tears?
Love hears his ladies crying their distress,
showing forth bitter sorrow through their eyes
because villainous Death has worked its cruel
destructive art upon a gentle heart,
and laid waste all that earth can find to praise
in a gracious lady, save her chastity."

Macabre could feel the worms underneath her belly, the damp and flexible insects squirming in the cool and moist earth underneath her. She thought of how they looked, the slimy creatures twisting this way and that among a herd of maggots in the rotting carcass of a fellow equine. That was the last time she'd seen a worm, anyway, with her own two eyes. While staring into the hollowed eye socket of a stranger, his limp body slowly returning to the earth from which he came. Macabre's petite legs lay neatly collected underneath her barrel, mud smeared over them and at her sides. It cast her flaxen coat in a darker hue, one that matched that of her feeble son's. The mare and foal had spent the recent weeks in relative seclusion. It had been days since she's caught the scent of Dogun or one of his other residents in the summer breeze. It was intentional of course. As Shiraz's health continued to decline, Macabre found herself pushing him further and further away -- deeper into the brush of the Inlet near the borders of Dogun's terrain. She feared it wouldn't be long before she'd find her own son dead, and the worms would eventually come for his young, though bleak, body too.

She heard the call, Dogun's shrill baritone vocals ringing out across the terrain. One chocolate-hued lobe flicked forward and back, her marble-colored eyes widening as a few osprey took to the sky, abandoning their high perches after having been startled by the foreign call. Shiraz, too, stirred from his light slumber on the ground upon hearing the abrupt rustling in the branches overhead, the high-pitched weezing returning as he struggled to stand on his stilt-like legs. His breathing was more irregular than ever. His sides heaved as he struggled to catch his breathe. Macabre merely nickered, something warm and gentle, in an effort to calm the boy's nerves. He too, recognized that something was wrong, that his body was failing him.

"Shall we go see Dogun?" Macabre asked, affectionately blowing hot carbon dioxide from her nostrils and into the wispy strands of her son's forelock. "I think we should." She said, and slowly extended her legs in an effort to stand. Her steps were slow and methodical, her usual brisk pace faltering in an effort to make the short trek easier on her thin son. They stopped twice, one for him to eat and another just to catch his breathe, before they caught sight of the herd in the clearing. Upon seeing the others, Shiraz's spirits seemingly lifted. He pranced in place before bounding forward in a lopsided canter -- an effort Macabre hadn't seen him make in weeks. She neighed in protest, warning him to save his energy and the colt stopped dead in his tracks, then slowly made his way over to the group obediently, alongside his mother. "Greetings, all." Was all that Macabre could muster. Shiraz leaned against his mother's chest, his bright, though tiresome, gaze bouncing from one to the next.