And Now I'm Nothing...[Any]

[Chrisma]

TW: Domestic abuse, stillborn children, depression, suicide. 

I am saying this because I do not want ANYONE to get really upset or triggered from events in their past. I cried while writing this today - it was a great outlet because I relate to a lot of things in this post. Please proceed with caution. <3


"I'm combing through the wreckage, trying to find where I've been..."



Two years had gone by in swift motion.
Sunny days bled into charcoal nights, the sun played hide and seek with the moon. Two years had slipped through her hooves. As she stood high upon the cliff, staring off into the horizon, Chrisma thought back to the circumstances that had brought her here.
***
She was three when she had met him.
Young, naïve, dumb…she hadn’t had a hardship in her life.
The field is where the story began.
Deep buckskin coat and completely mesmerizing green hues pierced through her skin and into her veins. He was dark, brooding – completely unlike the outgoing femme. “Opposites attract” they say.
He approached, he spoke. He told her his name was Valefar. Voice like velvet seeping into her ears. A word, a gesture…she was hooked. Five minutes and she knew that she wanted him to be hers.
Lust is what had brought them together. A towering, muscular figure; he needed no introduction, because even from afar she had wanted him. She smiled, she flirted; she flicked her tail and batted her lashes; fiery red coat and perfectly preened wings drawing him further in.
“Please come with me.”
A trap, a mistake. She fell for it.
The pair fell in love. At first, it was almost a movie-like romance; butterflies fluttering in stomachs, smiles so big it hurt, sweet-nothings whispered in the dead of night.
The love quickly turned toxic, like arsenic seeping into morning coffee. They fought teeth baring, blood drawing fights. Sex to make up for it and back they were again – a beautiful pair on the outside with trouble brewing between them.  Weeks would go by without consequence...one word and the brawl began again.
Manipulation led to bloodshed, but she didn’t want to leave.
Where could she go?
A night of passion led to the ultimate heartache.
Breeding season – libido in full swing. Her scent enticing him to come near. She touched him – caressing his body with hers, drawing him closer. She was heart wrenchingly beautiful; shiny crimson coat, golden flecked orbs staring intently at him under her alabaster painted face…wings outstretched for him to gawk at. Under the starry sky, she nickered to him…flirted with him…she ached for him. How could he refuse?  
Swollen belly, aching fetlocks. She had new purpose…she had a new love.
The child made her feel warm inside. It tickled her tummy as it moved, and she was glowing. She was the happiest she had ever been in her life.
Him? Not so much.
“I don’t want a child.” “Why did you seduce me?” “Now I have to take care of both of you.”
Words like venom, piercing into her heart. She wanted to run, but didn’t think she could protect herself.
Turns out, she was right.
He was angry. Eyes completely irrational with murder behind them. She could barely remember what she had said, but apparently it was enough.
A shove turned into a bite, which turned into a beating. The stallion apologized profusely for it…but Chrisma was finished. He told her if she left he would kill himself. But she had to do what was right her her and her baby.
“Goodbye, Val.”
A screeching neigh. A goodbye. She heard it from miles away…she hadn’t taken his threat so seriously.
Running. Panting. Her stomach was so huge…she didn’t make in time.
Off the cliff, to the rocks below. A crunch, a snap. The sharp rock pierced through him…he was gone. She sobbed, unable to see through her tears as the water took what was left of his body away. An agonized scream. Why had she walked away? Guilt rushed through her…she should’ve stayed.
Two weeks later, she went into labor. Blood - oh god, there was so much blood - poured out of her for hours until finally he was born. A colt…fiery red coat with beautiful black wings hugging his sides. He was absolutely beautiful. “Astelledon,” The only name Valefar had agreed to…his death still haunted her as she stared lovingly at her son, beginning to clean his coat.
Still.
She nudged him, urging him to rise.
Motionless.
Her heart began to pound. She shoved him, moving him desperately from side to side. What had happened? She had felt him moving inside her just days earlier. She pawed at him, panic fully setting in.
He was gone.
A cry rose from the depths of her belly. In agony, she tried to make him move. She plead with god to let him live, and take her instead. She caressed him with her neck, holding the lifeless body of her only child between her front legs.
“Please wake up…” For days, she begged. She cried until there were no tears left. She rocked the child back and forth, the world around her nothing more than a blur.
Rotting, smelling.
Bugs swarmed the body that she still held. She shooed them…but the swarm became too much…she had to move.
Shaky legs stumbled to get up, and she watched the body decay; eyes blank, heart completely shattered.
The one thing in life she had wanted – to be a mother – she had failed at. The child was gone, Valefar was gone…and she was nothing.
***
Today was her child’s birthday…he would’ve been two. He would’ve been such a beautiful stallion. He would’ve made her so proud…but he was dead, and his father was dead.
It was her fault.
So Chrisma stood at the edge of the cliff…contemplating. What did she even have to live for? Her beautiful coat that she once worked for hours to keep clean was covered in mud, her once preened wings unkempt. Her long, flowing crimson mane and tail stayed tangled with branches and debris. A sight, to say the least. Valefar had killed himself, and her child didn’t even have a chance at life.
Her eyes stayed blank… she was a hollow shell of what she used to be. Like the northern lights in a southern town, her happiness had been fleeting.
The sea on the horizon was a deep contrast of what was directly below her. It was calm, nearly unmoving. She watched it with uncertainty. Below, rocks jutted from the sea and formed huge sharp pillars. Waves crashed violently upon them. Just like her love had been with the buckskin stag – conflicted and virulent.
One landing on these, and it would be over. She wondered if Valefar had thought the same thing.
And then she decided.
Chrisma took in a deep breath of sea air, and moved closer to the edge. It beckoned her…it begged her to take the plunge. She put one hoof over the edge – it felt so real now. She put it back. She would do it…on the count of three.
3…2…

[Wyrm]

when the stars threw down their spears and water'd heaven with their tears:

“What a stupid way to die.” Wyrm speaks aloud from behind her, watching the suicidal horse with rather uninterested eyes. He waits a moment longer, flicks his green tail idly against one side of his ribs, and tilts a refined head filled with curiosity over the situation. She was pretty dramatic over the whole thing, wasn’t she? The doe-eyed mare had been standing here for some time, remembering or something else that weak-willed women did when they regretted past transgressions. Of course, far be it from them to realize they’d done it out of their own will and certainly, they were due for facing such actions at some point or another.

But, whenever pressed by former haunts the lesser of the two genders always seemed to anguish so needlessly over things time had long forgotten and, as a result, typically tried to lay the blame elsewhere. Those more desperate for attention, like this one before him, tended to make a public ordeal out of the matter.

With so many prowling Nerine’s powerful lands these days, she had certainly meant to have an audience far up here, above them all. It was honestly too bad for her that only Wyrm had chosen to show up.

“If you want it done much quicker and less painfully, I’d be happy to oblige you.” The shifter says without empathy. He only stares, completely serious, with mis-matching eyes to hear her answer.

did he smile his work to see? did he who made the Lamb make thee?

[Tantalize]

tantalize

I will try to hold you up

Through those times you are gone

You won’t do this alone

The jaguar knew heartbreak. She knew pain. She knew what it was like to lose someone you loved… Twice. To be fair, they had made the wrong choice. Look where Coralee had led Slaide in the end… Death. Lion had been a different story. Two rulers that could share the burdens of their kingdoms with each other. She had found a different kind of solace in him, so unlike the boy of stone. There had been heat and passion. Though she had always been loathe to admit it, she had loved the masochistic lion. He had managed to slip past her defenses, settle into the fire and brimstone of her heart.

It had been a mistake. One child had been created from love but the other… A slap in the face, a painful reminder. She can still remember, vividly, the day of the rape. When the break up had escalated, the way he had forced himself on her. She, an Amazon Queen, raped by the King of the Dale. The humiliation, the embarrassment, the heart break. Most would have folded into themselves, hidden away. She wasn’t most. Liz refused to be a victim so instead she started a war.

That was years ago, few could recall those days. Yet she remembers, she dreams.  At times, she still sheds a lone tear. There are wounds in her heart that would never be healed. Time had accepted it and nothing more. Time cannot heal all wounds.

Her golden eyes watch the mare that stands so precariously close to the cliff. Taking in the pain in her eyes, a familiar look. The way it etches in the hollows of her eyes and the lines of her face. They narrow as the stallion sidles up behind her and her lips curl into a snarl at his words. ”She wouldn’t fall alone.” The jaguar mare growls as she prowls towards them, placing herself between the lost dove of a mare and the predator. Ebony wings expand as if she could shield the mare from the death she seems to so willingly want.  ”You’ll regret it.” The words low and cool, her own gaze unreadable.

[Chrisma]

3...2...

"What a stupid way to die."

The mare paused, her body nearly ready to plummet to the rocks below. She didn't move; she didn't even look to see the figure that addressed her. An uninvited visitor to the end of her pain; a stranger who acted like they could possibly understand what she was going through. 

"If you want it done much quicker and less painfully, I'd be happy to oblige you." She could imagine a grin on his face...another equine making a mockery of her pain. Another equine that didn't understand, or who downright didn't care. She turned her head, only slightly, to look at him.

His emerald colored bodice was still, his two-toned eyes stared down at her. He was serious in words and demeanor. The mare moved her head back to stare straight at where the ocean met the sky. 

"You have no idea what I am going through," She spat, venom seeping into her words. "So get the hell away from me." She felt nothing...the words were said on autopilot. 

From behind, she heard someone else approach and she rolled her eyes. 

Do I need a fucking audience now? 

She heard the mare hiss something at the stag under her breath, and come towards Chrisma's brooding figure, separating her from the beast that first approached her. 

"You'll regret it." She said, and again the crimson mare looked over. The bay mare was spotted with perfectly pointed jaguar spots. Her mighty black wings stretched out, and she stared at Chrisma. The gaze was undecipherable, but the scarlet mare took a hesitant step back anyways.

"And why will I?" Her tone was biting and she waited patiently for a response.

[Wyrm]

when the stars threw down their spears and water'd heaven with their tears:

Oh, he was more than happy to oblige when the strange mare hissed at him to leave. Not his business in the first place, really, but in his own way he supposes he was trying to lend a proverbial hand. So what if he actually might have enjoyed it, for a bit? They’d both get a crumb of what they wanted … But, again, her scathing tones meant to penetrate his skin only roll over him weakly. He doesn’t even feel the need to retaliate.

Until the second mare hops on the train.

“Oh, so you’ll be going over too, then?” He smiles, knowing full and well what the jaguar spotted girl had meant. Her ebony wings unfurl, an adorable sort of snarl accompanying her thinly veiled threat. It would be endearing, if Wyrm could be moved to care. They chitter for a bit, two chipmunks that they are, and the green stallion allows them a moment’s respite until, finally, they shut up. “You’ll regret it because I doubt Nayl takes very kindly to those that fling themselves off her cliffs. Or come here with that intent, but without asking first, either.” He blinks.

Once, twice, his ears dart behind him; then with a sideways flick of his tail and a look that screams boredom, Wyrm loses his patience over the ordeal. “If you’re going to scramble yourself into bloody bits, do it somewhere else. And you - “ He points his speech, and his head, in the spotted mare’s direction, “ - you’d be better off convincing a rock to move.”

did he smile his work to see? did he who made the Lamb make thee?

[Tantalize]

tantalize

I will try to hold you up

Through those times you are gone

You won’t do this alone

The girl’s words are meant to be biting and mean but they fall flat on the jaguar mare’s ears. Her golden eyes look between both the mare who has now taken a hesitant step back and the amused stallion, green as envy. She sighs softly, her spread wings curling slowly until they are folded back at her sides. The emerald stallion fires off a few rounds at them both but they too fall flat. A faint smile tugs at the corner of her dark lips as amber iris’s glitter in his direction. ”You’d be better off flinging insults at a rock. Your words lack venom precious garden snake.” She responds dryly, ebony whipcord snapping against her haunches before she moves closer to the mare. Focusing on her and ignoring the stallion entirely.

If she could read their thoughts, she would laugh. Here she had thought her age was betraying her but she was still a girl in their eyes. This child wants to throw herself off a cliff because she had shed a few tears and had her heart broken. She doesn’t know the meaning of the word, has no idea of true loss. Wyrm on the other hand was a lot of bark and no bite. As if he has a right to scoff at suffering, as if he knows what true cruelness is.

”If you want to die then do so. It matters not to me. You can crash to the sea below, break your body on jagged rocks. Your blood can stain the stones and your name will be forgotten like so many before you. All for what I wonder…” She pauses, tilting her head slightly. ”Go ahead. Waste whatever potential you have on a boy I’m sure that never gave a shit about you. Don’t lie to yourself and say you won’t regret it the moment you step over.” She will not drip honeyed words or coax sweetness to keep her from her death. It was her choice. The stallion and the mare knew nothing of death and destruction, of loss and heartbreak. Yet here she stands, intact before them despite the invisible wounds and burdens she carries. The wars she had created, the deaths she had seen, mourned, caused. ”You know nothing of pain...”

[Heartfire]

Please let me know if the vision change is not ok!! I can definitely change <33

show them the joy and the pain and the ending

“No one is dying today.” The words, sharp and filled with surprising authority for the normally close-mouthed mare, ring into the air between the bickering trio. “Not here, at least.” Her easy step carries her to the group, blue eyes hard as they flick from one horse to another. Her gaze rests briefly on Wyrm, brow kicking up in silent question before she turns her gaze to the red mare standing far too close to the edge of the cliff.

A soft sigh escaping her lips, Heartfire slips past Tantalize along the crumbling edge, her gaze dropping to consider the jagged, stony shoreline far below. With a sudden rumble, the stones below begin to fall apart, dust rising as water heaves before settling into only a smooth, lapping ocean pool. Perhaps a painful landing, but certainly no longer deadly. Lifting her gaze once more, Heartfire fixes those cool blue eyes upon the newcomer. “If you have any further plans to commit suicide, I would advise the beach. You’ll a much friendlier atmosphere there.”

The last thing Nerine needed was more strangers believing this a good place to kill oneself. The kingdom already suffers enough trespassers as it is. And quite frankly, this unexpected gathering had found her in a rather irritable mood. Not the usual for the blue and white mare, but even she occasionally sees things that do not sit well with her, this scene being the least of them.

With another sigh, she murmurs “Enough of this nonsense.” before pressing her lips together. A simple shift, a mild tweak, and suddenly the red mare would see only air beneath her feet. Though the ground still remains solid beneath her, only sea and air would be visible under her hooves, the false ground jutting several innocuous feet behind her. “I’d advise a few steps back.”

She has always rather hated arguing about senseless things.

i filled up my senses with thoughts from the ghosts

[Chrisma]

Although she was not as close to the edge as before, the mare continued to gaze towards the open sea. She was silent, lips pursed, as the two behind her snapped at each other. She listened lazily with ears flicked back, until the green stallion said something that made her wince. 

"I doubt Nayl takes very kindly to those that fling themselves off her cliffs. Or come here with that intent, but without asking first either."

Her chest tightened, and although she would not admit it...she knew he was right. A sign of inherent disrespect for the leader of this land, that even in her deepest depression she knew wasn't right. But instead of giving him the satisfaction of proving her idea the wrong thing to do,  she stayed silent. 

Another mare approached: "No one is dying today." Her words were stern, her message was clear. "Not here, at least." She briefly approached Chrisma, and looked to the rocks below. They disappeared with a puff of smoke, and Chrisma raised her brows briefly. 

Disintegration...you see something new everyday. She stared until, suddenly, the ground slipped from beneath her, leaving nothing but air and sea. The blue and white mare told her to take a few steps back, and that she did. A swift turn, and she began to walk away from the trio. 

That is, until the jaguar mare spoke to her, and she stopped. Words slipped venomously from her tongue, and Chrisma felt herself grow angry. 

"How dare you question my pain as if you know it?" The fiery red mare growled. "Maybe my pain is not the same as yours...maybe it isn't even close to being as great..." She paused, swallowing and taking in a breath. She felt her eyes well with tears - she could not...no...she would not, give them the pleasure of her tears. "...but my pain is mine, and it lives inside me and grows every day. Every pain is different, and if you are to judge me for mine...well, you must not be as smart as you act." 

There where years between the two, and Chrisma did not question the other mare's experience, but in that moment, she was too angry to rationalize. While she didn't know what the mare had been through, she figured the jaguar mare's life had been an ordeal. 

But maybe she was right; maybe the cinnamon colored mare would regret the plunge - maybe she would lose out on a chance to redeem herself from the thoughts of suicide, from the past that still haunted her. Chrisma took a moment to calm, and then realigned herself in front of the other two mares. 

"I lost them...and it is my fault..." She stared up at the mare, jaw shaking with the thought of those she loved and lost. "And now I'm nothing..."


Had to edit it a bit because i posted before i realized you had @Heartfire ! xD But the vision change is okay. I edited it to get everything you did in there (:

[Tantalize]

tantalize

I will try to hold you up

Through those times you are gone

You won’t do this alone

Suddenly the icy mare that had taken her here appears. Rocks crumble and the way to death is removed. The jaguar remains quiet, says nothing as Heartfire takes away her choice. Was it her place to do so? Perhaps, perhaps not. Either way it is done. Now the suicidal mare turns her anger towards her, flings it precariously as she cries out about judgement and pain. All she does is give her faint smile in return, golden eyes sparkling.

”So you have fire after all. I find most that seek death aren’t angry but despondent. They have nothing. Yet here you stand, screaming for the world to hear.” Despite the claims of her lack of intelligence, the girl had proven the point all along. Had fallen right into the reaction she had been seeking. The red one calms, her sadness consuming her once more. ”No, you survived. They did not. That is life.” She pauses, quiet for a moment except for the rush of wind and the call of gulls in the distance.

”I find it more disrespectful to not remember the one’s you’ve lost and simply seek a quick solution. There is no honor in that.” A knowing look gleaming in the depths of her hooded gaze, seeing and not seeing. ”Take that pain and use it. You’re not a victim are you?” The question hangs in the air as she glances at the other two. Giving a slight dip of her muzzle in acknowledgment, she suddenly unfolds her wings once more and in a blink of an eye takes to the skies and leaves them to their thoughts as she escapes her own.

[Chrisma]

The jaguar mare's words replayed in the mare's ears over and over, the mare staring at her through understanding golden eyes. 

"Take that pain and use it. You aren't a victim are you?" A question, hanging over Chrisma's head. Guilt sank through her pores and into her veins. 

She was right. 

Chrisma did have something - she had a choice. She could be in a herd, have other children, make something of herself...or, she could let her past dictate what happened. She could fling herself over a cliff, and have no choice in what happens after. 

A silent nod to the jaguar mare, who had already propelled herself into the sky and away from the chaos below. Chrisma looked to the others who stand before her. She nodded her head once again, slightly, before turning around and walking back the way she came. 

Take that pain and use it...

So she did. Although she was still sad, and although her memories still haunted her, she took the mare's words to heart. 

She stopped by a stream, and immersed herself in the cool water, watching as the once caked on mud that clung to her pelt melted away. She dipped herself completely under the water, and let the burrs and branches that were once stuck in her mane and tail come undone. She rose out of the water, and tended to her wings for the first time in months. 

You aren't a victim are you? 

No...no, she was not.