She is alone in this corner of the meadow, except for her daughter that explores nearby. She watches Aislyn with a quiet sort of amusement, marveling at how incredibly different she is than most of her children. It was not just the vibrant pink of her eyes, or the peculiar smattering of white across her raven-black coat. It was the fierceness that she seemed to have been born with, and maybe coming into this world while it burned around her had played a small part in that. The little girl wanted so badly to explore more parts of Beqanna, but she was reluctant to let her – as she was with most of her children when they were this young. She knew that soon, she would be off on her own, and Ryatah would be just an afterthought. She released the tether on all of them eventually, some sooner than others, but she had a suspicion that Aislyn would be the one leaving, rather than the other way around.

Aislyn had preoccupied herself with a nest of young rabbits, and Ryatah was only half-way paying attention to make sure she didn’t try to follow one somewhere into the woods that flanked the border. She stood beneath a solitary tree, the warmth of the summer sun filtering through the leaves to create a lace of shadows across her porcelain-smooth skin, and out of habit, she continuously scanned for anyone familiar. It was a rare occurrence anymore, with most that she had known disappearing and fading to wherever one goes when they are no longer in Beqanna. The thought used to create an aching, hollow feeling in her chest, but she had founds ways to slowly pacify it (they were all a part of her twisted remedy, but she didn’t regret it).

She hadn’t realized she had become trapped inside her own mind again, until she felt the presence of someone walking by. Blinking the daydream from her eyes, she finds a golden mare, her skin glistening with sweat in places and her face drawn with fatigue. A quick glance to Aislyn finds her still more or less in the same place, and so she centers her focus again on the stranger. “Are you okay?” The softness of her voice somehow still fills the space between them, and her eyes reflect the concern for the other mare as she takes a hesitant step towards her.

Her eyes followed the other mare’s gaze to where Aislyn was currently stalking through the tall grasses in pursuit of one of the more active rabbits, and the pain that was written so clearly across her golden face was nearly palpable. Even before she says anything, her mind jumps to the correct conclusion. She has been lucky enough to have been spared the pain of losing a young child, but she can imagine it well enough, and the look that she wears is a sympathetic one. “I’m sorry,” she says as she steps from beneath the dappled light of the tree, and without thought or hesitation she brushes her muzzle against the younger girl’s cheek, taking the tear that had left a damp trail in its wake. “I’ve never lost a child that young, and I’m sorry that such a painful burden was placed on you.”

She listens, quiet and patient as the other continues, and even though there is a flicker of recognition in her eyes when she says immortality, nothing else registers on her pale white face. She waits until the golden mare is finished, before asking in her soft, curious manner, “What is it you are suppose to learn from them?” There is a pause, before another smile whispers at the edge of her lips and she admits, “I’ve been blessed, or cursed, with immortality, depending on how you view it. Perhaps I could help you?”

She touches her pale nose to the girl’s golden neck — after so many years in the dark, she had become accustomed to touching others to get a feel of where they were standing, or if there muscles sat rigid and tense beneath their skin, or to better draw in the scent of where they had been. Even with her newly gifted eyes, it was a habit that was hard to break, and it was with her lips resting delicately against her neck that she says, “My name is Ryatah, by the way.”

After so many years of haunting this earth, there were few things that stirred true emotion from her. She has seen death – in others, and in herself. She has witnessed sorrow and heartache, and as desperately as she had not wanted to, she has grown more calloused as time went on. Not uncaring or soulless, but there were only so many times that she could break, before she finally steeled herself into becoming something not so easily shattered. Even though there was a twisted part of her that loved that feeling of being torn from the inside out – something sick in her mind that relished in her anguish – she had learned to swallow it away.

She cannot remember the last time she truly allowed herself to feel sorrow  She isn’t sure why this girl manages to conjure such an ache in her heart, but when she leans into her touch, she does not withdraw. The way that she touches her is motherly, with her lips working idly at a stray tangle in her mane. “Lethy,” she murmurs her name after the introduction, with a faint smile in response to the story behind it, though she says nothing. She focuses instead of what she asks of immortality, a thoughtful expression darkening her already nearly black eyes as she searches for a way to explain. “It can be hard to watch everyone around you die. Even though there are so many that share the same ability, it’s never a guarantee that the ones you care about most will have it.” She cannot entirely relate in that aspect. Those that had the most impact on her life all had some sort of ability that kept them alive in the most unnatural of circumstances, just like her.

“And there is, of course, the fact that you yourself will never die. And sometimes even if death manages to find you, it doesn’t keep you forever. It’s fine, for awhile; knowing that you’re going to live forever. Until you begin to realize that you’re going to live forever.” She has pulled away from her now; just so that they no longer touch. What she says next is what causes her voice to quiet, a nearly imperceptible melancholy drifting in the notes of it when she says, “Every sorrow that you have ever felt, every pain that you fight to overcome, you realize you will never be away from it.” She thinks of the times that she has actually died, and how sometimes that great expanse of nothing was such a relief from the gaping cavern that rang hollow inside her chest. 

And she remembers, so clearly how she had told Carnage that she was not afraid of being dead, because more often than not she would rather feel nothing than to suffer with feeling everything. “Dying can be painful, but being dead...it doesn’t feel like anything. And after hundreds of years of feeling everything, it doesn’t seem so bad.” But she can’t say she wishes for it; not at this very moment, at least.

She doesn’t ask who the father was, because it does not occur to her to do so. There were so few that she knew that still lingered, and she never would have expected it to be her own son. But, she does touch her lips once more to the younger mare’s neck, as she says gently, “You make it easy to be kind to.” It had been so long since she had a conversation where nothing was expected from her; where there wasn’t some underlying agenda that one or both of them had, and for a fleeting moment, she almost feels normal. 

The question that she asks is not one that she has ever been asked before. It causes her to pause, with a look of concentration settling into the lines of her face. “I’ve never thought about it, actually.” Her answer is honest, but the question forces her to examine her own selfish tendencies. For all of her kindness, there was still something that had never quite clicked into place for her. There was something in the channels of her heart and the mapping of her soul that kept her from being entirely good. Her patterns were only patterns in the sense that she remained chaotic, always craving that high that darkness and vulnerability brought. She knew, without having to really think on it, that there were so many situations that she would not help someone, even if she had the ability.

“I’m not really one to long for any type of magic I don’t already have,” she says carefully, being cautious to tread past her own personal self-centered flaws and not reveal them. “I don’t know that I, personally, would trade what I’ve already been granted. But I suppose something like healing would be more useful to others.” There was no way to possibly explain where she came from in her reasonings. There was no way to package up the ruins of her life and tie it up with a neat bow and present it in a way that a stranger could comprehend, and so she doesn’t.

There were many that she loved with all of her heart, but her heart has always been a confused and broken and unreliable thing. 

“I’m not sure if I was any help to you at all. I hope I’ve given  you at least something that will work.” She touches her lips once more to the girl’s neck as she offers gently, “I live in Tephra, should you ever need anything. But I think it’s time I get Aislyn home.” Here, her dark eyes look to where to the black and white filly had given up on chasing the rabbits and was curled in a small bed of clover and wildflowers, dozing in the sun until her mother would rouse her so they could go home.