[open] youth would take the blame, any

[Falter]

these days i'm becoming everything that i hate,
my mind is a place that i can't escape your ghost

Her gaze drops to her hooves, and she lets out a long sigh at his quiet inquiry. What had happened? She thinks silently. Her thoughts are clouded by the darkness, shielding her from the truth. There was a reason why she could not remember (her recollection is dark and hazy with what occurred). Would she regret digging deeper? Would she find a truth she was not ready to face? The truth was there. All she had to do was push through the dark clouds. She needed to unravel it all—she needed to understand why she feels this sensation that flows through her veins, enlightening her with a force she has never felt before. It was strong. And it felt dangerous. “Then there was this dark voice,” she says quietly, “It was angry, so very angry at my father.” Falter didn’t understand why, she didn’t know even who the voice was. “And then these terrible, terrible monsters came. Creatures that should not have had breath, should not have life.” Falter lifts her nutmeg eyes to meet the white angel’s gaze. “Terrible things that were dead—ghouls, perhaps ghosts—and they came for me.” She trembles at the thought of them, their faces lighting up in her mind clearly. (Almost as if they are right in front of her again, reaching for her, taking her back into the darkness.) A soft whine, a whimper of concern breaks Falter away from reminiscing the horror. She glances at the hellhound, remembering he was still there. He whines again, and she feels a strange sense of comfort deep within her. Still, Falter was uncertain where the wolf-like creature had come from. Was he here for me? She thinks now remembering her father had once told her about her hellhound bother. It was a strange coincidence, or simply nothing at all. Shaking her head, she focuses back on the boy in front of her. “I don’t know what happened after that really,” she says gently, “Everything went black. My father was screaming.” And I was screaming for him too, but she does not say that part because what good would it do. What good would any of this do? “And I woke up here in the forest, and with him at my side,” she indicates with a nod of her head towards the hellhound that still sits at a distance from them.

Falter

@Selaphiel