She is falling, falling, the hot water closed over her head, and for a moment she wonders if she will drown anyway. Drowning will at least be more peaceful than being torn to shreds. But then she notices the water here is cool, and her head crests the water, and she takes a gasping breath, and her feet find purchase on the ground beneath. The girl stands, water dripping from her coat, and takes another shuddering breath before looking around. They’re two short again – two who did not make it through the wormhole to another place (another time?). The part of her that cares about others hopes that Carnage managed to send them home – she shivers at the thought of anyone being stuck in that last place with the monsters.
But…there. That is not one of them, that mare standing beyond the water. Not one of the seekers. Her acknowledgement is not instant, not like some of the others, but Kellyn stares at the unfamiliar woman until recognition sets in: recognition as soft at first as the flutter of butterfly wings and then a rush, like the waves that has so recently closed over her head. “Gail,” she breathes the word and then she slips from the water behind the others, watching. Wondering what is so special about this mare that the dark god is so desperate to have her back as to send them across this deadly game of worlds and times. She doesn’t seem like something so fantastic as to be so extraordinary. Even her words are confused – talking about death and her voice is not strong.
But as Brennen has told her many times, always with a quirk to his smile that isn’t quite settled, love is a fickle thing. It chooses you indiscriminately of logic and reason.
The filly has darted forward first, words spilling from her mouth in streams and rivers. Kellyn takes the opportunity to look around, because the shaking of the earth has drawn her attention and it in turn leads her to hear the chewing noise – it hurts, deep in her bones, and she knows it’s dangerous. The look reveals that the world is shrinking. Almost slow enough that one could miss it – but it blurs and darkens at the edge of the horizon, at the edge of her vision, and Kellyn knows that something is coming. They don’t have forever.
The filly talks of all the things Gail is missing – trees and grass and life. She talks about how much Carnage loves her, how she is the missing part of him. Kellyn wonders if that’s true (the world would have her believe he is Evil; and can Evil really love?) or if he has just taken a sudden fancy to wanting this woman back. He left her at the end of the world, after all, and for how long? Nymeria is different. Nymeria tries to tell her that she must come back because someone needs to tell everyone about the end of the world. That, too, she is skeptical of. How many will really believe they’ve been to the end of the world and back? Yes, it’s Beqanna, but even still there are things that must be seen to be believed. No…it will mostly be only those who have come who will believe.
The sound gets louder as Ramiel steps forward to speak, grating on her nerves. They all need a chance to speak, but she fears they won’t get it. Ramiel has quite a lot to say, and Kellyn throws him a sharp glance when he mentions Elite’s warpath in the Valley, wondering if that’s really the right track to take. Oh, yeah, by the way, your lover who left you here is even more of a psychopath than ever, and so are his kids, did you know? Was that really the way to talk someone off the brink? She can see dark shapes now out of the corner of her eyes when she isn’t quite looking, and the world continues to shrink and blur.
When they have fallen silent, the strawberry girl closes the last few steps to stand with them, to join the smaller group, her green gaze bright and curious. She makes a picture, surely – her mane and tail tangled from the wormholes and the running, blood staining her hindquarters where the ocean hadn’t quite managed to wash it away. Fresh blood trickles from where her movements have torn apart the half-formed scabs. “He left you here,” the words come slowly, because the feel of them is as always unfamiliar in her mouth. She talks rarely, having no real need to do so when she hides away in the Tundra with only her family for company. The feeling of desperation burns in her voice, urgency driving her to speak though she doesn’t want to. “You have every right to be angry, to feel abandoned, but He is not here. If you die here, if we all die here, our stories are ended. But that’s not right, is it?” Kellyn takes a step closer, a frown etched on her face. “He is a part of you. How can you end if he goes on? That is the ending you are supposed to have.”
The strawberry girl glances at each of her companions in turn, wondering what they leave behind if they all fail. If no one convinces her that she must come with them. Will He yank them back? Can He? Or will He let them die here, with her? The end of the world. Kellyn is perhaps the only one amongst them who could escape this, but she isn’t even sure she can. This is farther than she has ever gone – and even if she could send herself back in time, she couldn’t take them with her. One maybe, or two, but she would have to choose. And still, she might fail. “I would be angry, too. But He has torn parts of the world apart to send us here, to the end of the world, to find you. Clearly you mean something to Him. Maybe this is not meant to be your end. Maybe you are meant to be at His side until this comes for real, not jumping through time and space to get here sooner. The end of the world will come in its own time – but now is not that time.” Something in her voice changes when she talks about time – a softness that is somehow yet authority. She knows time. Its ins and its outs; and this feels wrong. Suddenly though, she grins, her capricious nature unable to hide itself for long, and her voice turns cheerful. “Besides, come back with us and you can make His life a living hell for as long as it takes to feel better about Him leaving you here.”
She steps back now and throws an unreadable glance at them as she turns to the horizon, something fierce in her gaze. Kellyn wants to live, and is frustrated if she doesn’t. “We’re running out of time. You know we are. You have to make a decision. Make it the right one.” And then the little mare steps away from the group and stares at the approaching things, big and then little and then big, teeth as bad as the monsters before, mouths as big as the dark caves of the Tundra. Wanting to give them all more time, more time to convince Gail to come, she struggles with the slippery lines of time. They don’t quite follow the rules she’s familiar with, but she catches them for a few seconds at a time, jerking them to a halt, only to feel the lurch of nausea in the pit of her stomach when they slip from her grasp and resume their inorexible forward movement. It goes like this again and again, and she is dark with sweat and breathing hard, but still hoping one of them will convince Gail to come if she can give them enough time.
She thought she had nothing to lose. But she knows now – she wants to live.