i hear the wicked get no rest, but when you do ---------- i hope you dream of me When Gale woke, it was to a world of darkness and the sensation of immense pressure. His sides cannot expand to breathe, and he dies again not long after, succumbing to the dark edges at his vision. He wakes again, is able to force his way through several feet of snow, and dies again. Time passes - perhaps hours or weeks - but eventually he breaks through the crust of snow much as he emerged from his first red dirt grave: panting and sweating, heaving great breaths of the high mountain air. The Curse is nothing more than a hard dark knot within Gale’s chest, protected from these deaths with the very last of his magic, and protected from the detection of the blue-eyed stallion who looks up at the soaring peaks and the star-pierced sky and does not recognize them. He wants to be home in Islandres, and so - in the blink of an eye - he is. The magic had come from his worry, and it wakes the thing within him. In the pitch black of a moonless night, the Curse obliterates its host with astonishing speed, destroying the conscious mind and turning his soul to dust. That complete, he reaches for the magic to take him away from the island, only to find himself short. The island hadn’t been entirely empty when he was here last, Gale recalls. Perhaps some of the nereids have come ashore to sleep; they’re slippery but delicious, and he is sure he could keep one on land long enough to hurt her. So he sets off toward the shoreline, the only light coming from the soft glow of his brindle markings and the distant stars. GALE