Common

The wind tugged gently at the dry grass, the tapered tips tickling at Svenja's knees as she walked. Amber and copper hued leaves danced upon the branches of the trees that ringed the clearing, filling the clearing with a brittle but rhythmic rattle.

Svenja wandered at a steady pace, no particular destination in mind. Her eyes, once a bright and lively hazel, had dulled to a flat and tired brown, remaining fixed on some indeterminate point in the distance. Though she looked hale and whole, her coat gleaming and her small frame speaking to a robust diet, her motions lacked any sort of zest, her steady steps devoid of energy. Her tail hung limp at her back, her ears hanging loosely upon her crown.

For all intents and purposes she was alive, though she felt anything but. She had seen much, loved deeply, and given pieces of herself away, only to lose it all. Drogon was dead. Nuka had disappeared off the face of the earth. Her children were scattered to the wind. Though she was still reasonably young, with an entire future laid out before her, Svenja felt little will to plan for anything meaningful. Everything that had once been of importance to her was gone. The ever-flowing river of time had battered her down until she was but a sliver of her former self, worn thin beneath its relentless current.

She had thought, once, that leaving the islands would absolve her of the grief that she carried with her now, a relentless burden that pressed against her heart and filled her lungs. If she could only escape the place that had brought her so much pain, she might finally be free. Yet even with all the miles she put between her and her homeland, the yawning void within her chest only seemed to deepen, growing wider and blacker with each passing month.

Now, she was back. If she was to be miserable, she thought, it might as well be within the comfort of a home she knew. She wanted to believe that some minuscule part of her was still capable of hoping for a better, brighter future. That some faint, flickering ember of her old self still smoldered within her. But it was hard, to be the cheerful and upbeat mare she had once been, when it felt as if her life was void of anything meaningful.

As she passed beneath the skeletal frame of a lone, bare-branched tree, its gnarled branches silhouetted against the clear midday sky, Svenja scarcely noticed the stranger that eyed her from across the meadow.