I'll settle for the ghost of you.

From Lillibet, he learns of the ruins. They had appeared after the South had fallen but other than that, they seemed mostly a mystery. She had spoken of looking for hints of others there, the possibility of evidence from those of Sylva and the Pampas could have by chance reached that location, and its not long till he goes to see for himself.

The silence is unexpected, pale hooves echoing off rough stone, when he arrives. There's a strange sensation in this place, the quiet air almost oppressive, a feeling as if being watched. One would think he would be use to such a sense with his unusual bond to the afterlife but in this place he finds himself rather unnerved. Slowly he makes his way through the crumbling structures and begins to search. Sharp yellow eyes cover the ground, looking for any sign that might have been left by someone he knew. Lilybee had not had much luck in this place and if she hadn’t found anyone then he doubts his fortune will be any better. However, he stubbornly persists if only because its better then doing nothing at all. Better than waiting in Pangea and getting his hopes dashed every day that no news came.

Minutes tick by and then change to hours. The sun had been high in the sky when he started but it is now late afternoon and he still hasn’t covered nearly half this place. There is no sign of Aela yet but still he presses on, flames ravaging along his back as his irritation rises and his hope dwindles. There are places where the sea swells and floods that still needs to be checked but he is wary of getting too close, his dreams still heavily influenced by his time out at sea. Those memories of falling and drowning begin to emerge and he grimaces, turning away from the ocean and back to the task at hand.

Twilight had barely begun to appear when he thinks he hears something from behind him. It’s not fear that makes him turn but annoyance at being interrupted, yellow eyes peering into the strange shadows made from the ruins. “Show yourself.” He finally says, unamused, as the fire erupts into tall spirals along his spine and begins to form in front of him defensively.

I'll settle for the ghost of you.

There is movement in the shadows and he feels on edge in this place. Feels the pressure from the beyond to open that link between them, a gnawing ache in the back of his skull. He can’t though, he can’t stand to look and see the soul of someone he recognized. The fire blazes before them but then comes his name in her soft voice that somehow breaks through the smoke. He blinks, uncertain. And then all the fire goes out in a strange crackling snap and it is just them in the growing dimness.

“Sickle?” He says, his voice soft and low. In the crescent of moonlight that begins to rise over the ruins, he begins to glow like the sun. Enough to catch her features in the hazy brightness and for her to see his pure relief. Bright yellow eyes search the mare and find the features of the filly he had once known. Who had practiced with him and showed him shifting amongst the wildflowers. He had known she had been taken when the jaguar mare was killed. There had been much chaos that day in the Pampas and he had been rather sad he hadn’t gotten to say goodbye to her.

A loose smile finds his mouth and he doesn’t think twice before stepping towards her, extending his muzzle only to quickly pull it back. A few flames flicker across his spotted shoulders in embarrassment, that sudden need to touch her and make sure she was real and not a very persistent soul. Her’s was the first familiar face he had seen since he had fallen to the sea. He had figured she would be fine when he had heard only the South had been affected but there is still solace in her familiarity. “It’s good to see you too.” He says and he means it. “How have you been?” He says and then pauses for a second, something like regret flickering in the flames of his bronze eyes. "I wanted to see you but I wasn't sure where you had gone."

I'll settle for the ghost of you.

To an outsider, their mutual glows might have been confusing. A blend of twilight that seems to merge into the sun, sunlight that bleeds into her eventide. All the more out of place within these darkening stone walls. They had still been children when he had last seen her, when he had enjoyed all the various shapes and creatures she could become. Sickle had been one of the few playmates he had a feeling Aela had ever approved of which had made her sudden absence that much more confusing. He had been surprised his mother had let her go so easily, not truly understanding what had happened the day Mazikeen had arrived in the Pampas to bring her home.

There was still much he hadn’t gotten to know about her and things he had wanted to show her. He had never gotten the chance to test his mettle against her own, to test himself against the best of the best.

Considering that their friendship had only just begun to bloom, perhaps it is strange to be so pleased to see her. Then again, considering everything he had recently gone through, maybe it wasn’t so odd after all. The regret lingers in his gaze as she shakes her head and he wonders if he had asked something he shouldn’t. There is a little clarity when she explains about being stolen which is news to him and shows in the frown that curls on the corner of his mouth. He hadn’t know she had been stolen from them (stolen from him that little dark voice corrects in the back of his head), only that her mother had wanted to take her home. As for missing the Pampas… “Me too.” He says quietly, a faint smile matching her own but the weight of his words are gloomy with meaning.

Curiosity passes over his features at the mention of the Forest and for a moment he thinks to ask if she had seen Firion, if she had spotted the stallion that looked similar to himself who he had last seen so heart-sick in the dark woods. He thinks better of it when she brings the conversation back around to him and now it is his turn to be hesitant, uncertain, when so many fates were unknown to him and even thinking of those that were missing caused an ache in his chest.

“I was home when the earthquake struck.” He finally manages, rolling a jaguar spotted shoulder in a small shrug as his yellow eyes glance away from her face. “I think I was drowning.” He suddenly says, finding himself unable to meet her gaze and instead looking towards the sea that had almost taken his life. It was not something he had really spoken to anyone about except for Lillibet, for who could truly understand the terror and the loss except for those that had lived through it? Those who had also lost their family and homes. Yet, standing here with Sickle and feeling the tentative threads of their friendship again, he finds he doesn’t mind sharing this with her even when it dredges up painful memories.

“Somehow I ended up on the Isle. I stayed there for a bit until I could get back to the mainland and then I got turned around and ended up in Hyaline but didn’t stay too long.” Raising his head slightly, he looks into her mismatched gaze with a sigh. “I’m residing in Pangea now with another Southern survivor.” He finally says, hesitating a moment. “There’s talk that maybe others that are missing might show up there. Like my mother.” Worry flickers through his strange yellow eyes but he shutters it quickly, glancing back over to the shadows they create through the stones with their glow.

He finds he doesn’t want to talk about that anymore, the constant feeling of dread he wakes up with each morning and falls asleep with each night. How he tries to resist that feeling in the back of his skull that’s constantly knocking, demanding, for him to open back up and summon souls one by one until he finds his answers. Instead, he shifts with discomfort before finally looking back to her. “I didn’t know you had been stolen. I thought you had gone home by choice.” He manages, something uncertain flickering in the flames along his spine. “I’m sorry.” What he is apologizing for he’s not exactly sure. Not stopping it from happening? Not knowing that he should have looked for her sooner, that maybe he could have helped? It’s hard to say but it feels right, that he should be saying he’s sorry for something.

This time he doesn’t think twice when he steps towards her and gently nudges her iridescent cheek with a pale glowing muzzle. “I am glad that your alright.”

I'll settle for the ghost of you.

It’s funny how culpability works, how it wedges itself deep between bones and flesh until you can physically feel it. Both of them carrying this weight while wrongly assuming that they were to blame for their parents mistakes. As if they hadn’t been children, as if they could make a difference when it came to a natural disaster or kingdom schemes that had gone far over their heads. He can only give a tight nod when she speaks, his own hope for a reunion growing dimmer by the day. Surely if Aela was alive, he would have found her by now. Guilt curls heavily in his stomach even though she smiles when he touches her gently, he’s not sure he deserves her kindness. What was the point of all this power that flowed through his veins if he couldn’t protect the ones that mattered? He hadn’t tried to stop Sickle from being stolen, hadn’t been able to do anything when the Pampas fell. Since Terror had fled from the angel, failure had not hung so heavily around him. It stirs now in those dark parts of him, reminding him of what he has always been.

Color blooms along her cheek as he pulls away, a golden blush against dark skin. He finds the humor in her gaze and gives a soft chuckle, feeling that tightness in his chest lighten slightly and that nagging voice of ”Terrible” fades. She offers another distraction by asking after Hyaline and he can’t help but notice the subtle changes in her body, the uncertainty that is often mirrored in the flames that dance along his spine. “It was pretty, seemed nice enough. I wasn’t there long and only met one while I was there, a real-life angel if you can believe.” He pauses, thinking of Ryatah and her healing touch. Remembering Terror’s abhorrence. “I liked her.”

Before he can question her curiosity, as she shifts her hooves and his own interest rises, she provides an answer. For a moment, he’s not sure what to say. "Your adopted?” He finally manages to ask, wondering why she had not mentioned it before. He had never kept his own adoption a secret, had been proud that Aela had seen something worthy in him for her to call him son. Had she been ashamed of where she came from? It starts to make sense though, her being stolen. He remembers what Sickle had told him about the jungle of her home and a volcano, the complete opposite of what he had found in Hyaline. Everything surrounding Sickle’s disappearance from the wildflowers had been off from the beginning and everything he was finding out now leaves a sour taste in his mouth.

Surely his mother had known what had happened to her and for the first time, he wonders if Aela had kept anything else from him. Something new begins to stir in his chest, something hot and upsetting that ties into that heaviness of guilt, thinking on those last few words over and over again. She hadn’t wanted to go. Flames flicker in the yellow of his eyes as he looks at her before quietly asking, “Was she unkind to you? Your birth mother?”

I'll settle for the ghost of you.

That rush of heat in his chest begins to stir new flames but they are unlike the ones that flicker along his spine. There is brimstone in his belly, there is ash on his tongue. Fyr had never been truly angry before and the emotion is one of the strongest he has ever felt. There had been small glimpses of it when he had been abandoned, when he had been shunned in the den, when BoneBone had tried to trick him. But not like this. It seems to ride on the smoky coattails of his fire and stirs something along the barred door where the souls howl to come in with a force that quiets them instantly. He is still and stoic as Sickle explains the backstory of her life, a flicker of recognition in his yellow gaze at the mention of the name Mazikeen.

He’s heard that name before, overheard it actually, in a conversation that his mother had with Obscene.

Gale and Mazikeen. While he had never seen either horse in person, he knew that Gale had been the one to hurt the Fae Prince and had killed the jaguar mare whose corpse he had turned to cinders. He knew that Gale and Mazikeen were spoken about as if connected, as if a couple. It isn’t hard to connect the dots and there is both fury and empathy that cause a frightening storm sparking in his body, that set the split ends of his reddish-brown mane on fire.

”She scared me.”

His jaw clenches in response as the same time his sympathy and anger try to fight each other for a dominant position. Color plays across her coat and he follows it, noticing scars he didn't remember her having before and noting that anger had indeed won out. Her story helps put his own in perspective. His birth mother, whose name he didn’t even know, had left him and had planted an awful thing in his head with a single word. It had been cruel but it didn’t compare to what Sickle had gone through.

He is silent as she looks up to the sky and then once more his feelings struggle to find hierarchy when she heartbreakingly says that last phrase. Aela had at least wanted to keep him. Sickle had nobody.

“You can stay with me.” He looks at her after a long beat of silence, swallowing hard as he tries to find the right thing to say. “With us, I mean. In Pangea. That’s where I live now with another displaced Southerner.” An uncertain pause. “I wanted you to stay. Back then… In the Pampas.” We would have kept you, he thinks but doesn’t add. He lets his offer hang in the air for a moment, not expecting her to respond to it right away. Besides, there are more important things to get off his chest.

“I think your dad killed Obscene’s mom.” He says quietly, shuffling his hooves beneath him as his flames begin their uncertain twists and turns along his shoulders. "It happened right after you left." He adds with a hint of a shrug, glancing at her with a small frown.  “It’s not your fault, you know?” He finally says after looking at the ground, chewing over everything she had told him. “You were just a kid. Nobody deserves that, Sickle.”

He feels as if he should comfort her somehow but he is uncertain on what to do. Touch with another outside of the way he had curled into Aela’s chest as a small colt was still foreign to him. Even the small touch to Sickle’s cheek earlier had been a tentative one, always worried that the fire within him might take a life of its own despite the steady control he had on it. More worrisome was that the shadow voice might stir it all up in encouragement. Part of him wants to hug her, the other part is nervous just to look at her in case she fully bursts into tears. It’s the ugly upset feeling that finally spurs him to come closer to her, forcing all his flames as far down as they will go and leaving only wisps of smoke in their wake. He doesn’t reach for her but he is there, if she needs him to be. 

“I could go with you if you want. To Hyaline.” He finally says, his voice rough despite the low way the words are whispered. “If she tries to harm you…” He gives a short thrust of his muzzle instead of finishing the sentence, certain she knows what he implies. “You deserve answers.” For once he agrees with the shadowy voice that says that he could make her answer them if Sickle wanted. Hell, she didn’t even need to ask.