Tonight, like so many other nights, Magnus ran.

He rose from his fitful slumber, the moon still hanging heavily in the sky and turned his golden head toward the border. His heart beat impatiently against his ribs and his emotions stirred restlessly, the darkest parts of him reaching out and clawing for purchase against the corners of his mind. Agitated, he shook himself, dust billowing outward and into the sky, and he broke into a trot. His leggy pace carried him quickly over the tendrils of magma as they crossed over the land, and past the slumbering bodies of his fellow residents. When he splashed across the water that marked their border, he did not look back.

Instead he tucked his head into his chest, rocked back ever so slightly and then rocketed forward, the power of the move surprising him. The silver light of the moon guided him as his hooves beat heavily against the abandoned trail. There was none out so late, not on the way from Tephra to the more common lands, and he was grateful for the solitude. He kicked back, expending the excess energy, the demons that fought him for attention. He snarled, memories rising within him like flames and settling like ash.

No, tonight, he would not think of them—could not think of him.

He ran until he saw the edges of the meadow, but he was not ready to stop yet and so he skirted around it. He continued on his tear until the ground became littered with needles, until the trees began to crowd in, until the dappled light of the moon winked in and out of existence between them. And then, finally, in this solitude, he came to a stop. The dusk of his coat was darkened to bronze, and he greedily gulped in the air as he tipped his head back to look at the canopy of stars flung out above him. Chest heaving, that is how he remained, unable to outrun the memories that now played out before him, all he had lost and all he had destroy writ in the constellations that swirled and collided above him in all of their splendor.

out of the blue out into the loneliest place that you'll ever know
I carried the world just as far as I could but the damage had taken its toll

He was different now.

Standing here, slick with the exertion of his run, exhaustion setting into the very marrow of his bones, Magnus knew that he was different. Ever since he’d met that strange, pale stallion, the man who had talked of love and fear—of life eternal—he had known he was different. Tobiah had bargained, pleaded with the faeries and unrooted an immortality that felt more like a prison than a gift and unwrapped it from his core. He had reached down inside of himself and then pressed that same gift into the very begin of Magnus, and the faeries had accepted the terms. And now Magnus, dead once, could live forever.

It was strange to think of the years stretched out before him. The time that now unraveled seemingly endlessly with no end, no natural progression of age or illness. He was forever locked in this moment, too young already for the years (centuries) that have passed since his birth and now forever more stuck there. He would never know what it is to lie down and let death take him, to know the exhaustion of age.

But he would also love those years relatively alone.

It left him hollow, lonely, aching, and he didn’t try to pretend otherwise. He was stripped bare, vulnerable, and was taken by surprise when he heard the voice calling out to him. Without hesitation, he whipped his head down, ignoring the wild hurt that spread through his chest. “Hello?” called softly into the darkness around him, the silver of the moon illuminating the area directly around him only. “I’m not going to hurt you,” confusion crept into his voice, but he fought to keep his voice reassuring and steady.

“I apologize if I frightened you.”

He thought that he could maybe sense another creature there, another nearby, but he couldn’t be certain. In this moment, he couldn’t see anyone and so he did not move, hoping that by remaining still that he would cut a less imposing figure in the dark. “My name is Magnus,” he offered to the phantom creatures nearby, hoping it would help, hoping it would put their mind at ease at the very least.

out of the blue out into the loneliest place that you'll ever know
I carried the world just as far as I could but the damage had taken its toll