[private] Sidewalk scenes and black limousines (Gale)

[Eyas]

And the walls kept tumbling down in the city that we love

For most the sun returning was a blessing, but for Eyas it felt like a curse. The Eclipse had given her more happiness than she’d had in her short lifetime, more happiness than Eyas felt she deserved, and at the end her love and simple happiness had been stolen away. Ehko — her and ‘Tana’s sweet, young filly — had been found by her brother Brash half-dead on the shoreline, after he’d interrupted a predator’s spat over her limp body. Two mares had been involved and slipped away before Eyas or Santana could enact deadly revenge, and they had Brash to thank for preserving what was left of her small, ragged form.

Eyas barely knew who the involved parties were by her colt’s farway sighting; she’d looked for them with anger so sharp and intense it broke her apart, and if she ever found them again they would suffer a fate worse than hell as horses knew it.

But it was useless in the present. She had wept fresh saltwater into the ocean, for hours or perhaps days, numb to the family she’d created with the dragon-shifter. There was only Ehko’s tiny body cradled against her own, curled and hard as a rock which Eyas mistook for rigor mortis. Eventually another horse had tried to pry her away, who it’d been she couldn’t remember. Eyas only recalled how viciously she’d fought and screamed that she wouldn’t be moved, not until her daughter’s flesh decayed from the bone.

Weeks passed. Ehko did not decay.

It was only when the first crystals of ice began to form over her skin like sparkling diamonds that Eyas paused her lamentation and pulled her head away, the black rims of her eyes swollen nearly shut. She’d inspected her daughter’s body in confusion: Ehko was stiff, but cold. Frozen, ‘Tana had said when Eyas begged him to have a look. Strange.

She sought out Gale afterwards.

“I’m leaving.” She told him as soon as she’d found him. Her triplet had been increasingly busy these days, so it felt senseless to pretend Eyas was here for niceties. Best to cut straight to the heart of matters. “My daughter was attacked here and left nearly-dead. She’s… freezing over, I think.” Eyas explained, hollowed out from the inside. The words had no depth, only meaning. “I’m taking her to Icicle Isle one way or another so that she can complete the process there. If I have to carry her myself the whole way I will, but I think Santana will help if I beg him.”

And then it spilled out of her. “My children were my everything Gale. My everything. I can’t leave her there alone — I won’t.” Her voice broke again, dry of tears spent long ago. If it took a thousand lifetimes she’d stay and keep guard over the tiny life she’d failed to protect. Santana and Brash could visit her if they liked; Brash was old enough now to be out on his lonesome and Santana had never needed her, it had always been the opposite. “So I’m going.” She said.

That went without saying she was giving up her title here, giving up her life etched into the tiny sea-capped island. For so long she’d been useless anyways. Islandres was growing and @[Gale] with it. Both deserved a better second-in-command.

Grey clouds roll over the hills, bringing darkness from above

[Gale]

Gale this is going to break me clean in two -- this is going to bring me close to you Though the eclipse has grown no darker, Gale thoughts have. The island is quiet, its colorful beauty invisible in the darkness, and there is little to see to distract him from his thoughts. He does not try to See either, worried that using his family’s magic might somehow summon them. Most of his time is spent in shapes other than his own, for Gle has found that his mind seems simpler in them, less complicated. The dark god’s curse is made for equine minds, after all, and so in shifting Gale finds some small and accidental respite. At low tide he had been a crocodile: short, well-muscled, and quite at home among the wetlands. By the time Eyas finds him, he is a horse again, because he has shifted too much of late and could not hold the reptile for long. A few good nights’ rest and he’ll be good as new. But he’s not slept well in months. He is tired, and irritable, and in less than the best mood when Eyas finds him on the beach. “I’m leaving”, she tells him, and if that is not the cherry to top off his delightful afternoon. Gale scowls. ‘My child was attacked’, she continues, so straight-faced that Gale immediately wonders how long ago this must have happened, for Eyas to have schooled her features so well. She hadn’t come to him before? He isn’t quite sure how that thought wounds him, but it’s a sharp realization, one that his Healing cannot change. Of course she wouldn’t come to him. He’s a danger now, not a help. As it often had, the same thought passes through each of their minds simultaneously. Gale feels useless himself. He’s done nothing but skulk about in the darkness for months - he hadn’t been able to save his niece, protect the island, or anything worth doing at all. Gale sighs, and looks away from his sister’s empty black eyes. The despair draws in the darkness, as it often does, and the Curse raises its head. Eyas is leaving, and her promise of watchfulness with her. There are a great many things it might do unobserved. Gale, lost somewhere in his mind, would have asked what he might do to fix this, how he might help. His lips however, form a single word. “Goodbye.” @[Eyas]