OOC: Trigger warning for the post ahead; pretty heavy depression and some suicidal ideation.

At the summit of the Ridge, there exists a small bubble where both peace and chaos seem to exist in harmony. There's no denying that the wind that whips at her mane and tail, tugging her ever more insistently toward the edge, is chaos encapsulated. It shoves at her body, buffeting her with wild gusts that force her to rock her weight onto her hind end to keep her balance. From here, the clouds raced by at strange speeds, occasionally hiding her in a cloudbank so dense she couldn't see the ground beneath her hooves and then flitting away to leave the whole of the Ridge splayed out beneath her like a painting.

From here, she couldn't see the heartbreak in Ailill's eyes each time he looked at them. She couldn't see the way Akadi was closing up and moving farther away from all of them, even from her. She didn't have to watch the twins grow less and less playful, and more and more listless. She didn't have to see the way that she no longer saw Faolain or Rivaini race through the land or weave flowers in each other's manes. Sigurdr's horrorstricken face didn't dash through her mind each time she closed her eyes, replaying the terrible moment she had admitted her role in all of this.

Roisin didn't even seek out Iscariot anymore.

She wasn't sure she could face the shame of telling him that she was the reason that Siobhan was gone. That her mother had been kidnapped and raped and tortured. The girl couldn't shake the thought that If only she had offered herself in her mother's place, Siobhan might still be here with her family and those that loved her. Her sisters would still have their mother and Ailill would still have the woman that she loved. If she had only been brave like her father and offered herself in her place.

It all made her sick and ashamed.

Each day felt like an eternity, and with each new morning, Roi withdrew further and further into herself. She spent less time with her family, and more time alone, which only compounded her guilt and loneliness. Now more than ever they needed to stick together and yet she couldn't bear adding their grief to her own. Here, she had only her self-recrimination to deal with, and that was a heavy enough burden to have led her up to where sky met bare rock rather than lush jungle.

Here, where the air was thin and the sky was so close she could touch it, she found peace for the first time in days. It was an uneasy peace to be sure, but it was the closest she'd gotten to feeling something other than guilt and sorrow. Fear and longing twisted alongside each other uneasily as she stared at the ledge. Fear made her knees weak and her heart race in her chest. The longer she stared at the cliff edge, the drier her mouth became.

She could do it.

Maybe it would fix everything. Or nothing. But it might make the hurt stop. And if she could just stop hurting, she thought that maybe it would all be worth it. Maybe if she wasn't here, Nyimara would let go of Siobhan. Or not. In truth, she didn't really care about what happened to her own self anymore. She didn't know if there was a heaven or a hell or Valhalla or endless Paradise at the end of that fall, but it didn't matter. Hell, she'd take the endless peace of nothing if it meant she didn't wake up each day hating the fact that she had woken up again.

She could do it, she thought. But not today. Not yet. She wasn't brave enough yet.

With a soft mewl of disappointment and shame, the girl turned from the cliff on trembling limbs and picked her way a few paces down the path from which she'd came before the sobs overtook her. Shuddering with an emotion she cannot understand, let alone name, Roisin leans against the impartial rockface and lets them come. She hates to cry, but sometimes its better than being numb. And anyway, no one was likely to follow her all the way up here to hear it anyway.

FILLY | MUTT | 14.3 HANDS WFG | BAY DUN SABINO | THE RIDGE | BJORN x SIOBHAN | LOVEINSPIRED | CREDIT