She is with Tobiah when the world ends, watching the colors of the sun bleed across a brand new sky. It is subtle at first when the earth trembles, when it rises and falls like a chest beneath their feet. Subtle, until the rocks from the peaks above loosen and rain down against their backs, until the trees sway with no wind to force their branches.
It is subtle until it isn’t.
Until suddenly the mountain is stolen from beneath their feet and she is falling forever into a sky with no end.
There isn’t enough time to say anything, not enough time to see if the horror that etches across her face is reflected in the pale curve of his. There is only enough time to reach for him as she falls, to try and catch his mane between her teeth, to steady herself against his side. But she cannot reach, and when her mouth closes it is only around a single white feather which pulls free from his wing. She has enough time to wonder if he can fly on those wings, with one so much smaller than the other, enough time to wish for it to be so before the dark reaches out to take her.
She wakes in the dirt and she is alone. It takes roughly the length of a heartbeat to notice first the soft white feather resting beside her nose, and second that Tobiah is not there. None of her family is. There are strangers in the distance and some of them yell, but most are quiet like she chooses to be. She takes a moment to struggle to her feet, sore and bruised, with red peering out like tears against the white, but startlingly unharmed for having fallen from one mountain to the next. Dropping her nose to the ground she picks up that feather, twisting again so that she can wedge it into the knots and tangles of mane near her withers. It holds fast beside the bone snowflake, stark against her dark mane, and with an ache in her chest she wills it to stay.
It takes nearly an entire day to make her way back down the mountain, longer than some, perhaps, because she had stayed so long looking for her family. But when the sun peaked in the sky and began to drop again, she mirrored its descent, picking a trail that looked well and recently travelled.
It was dark by the time she reached the bottom, darker still as she made her way across unfamiliar land to a forest she did think she recognized. She couldn’t be certain in the endless blue of night, lit only by the water light of a narrow moon and the pin pricks of stars, but this place felt familiar. Quietly she found a spot in the among the trees, an empty spot, a spot not already filled with someone as lost and lonely as she, and settled in. At the first light of morning she would go searching for a familiar face again, but until then it felt stupid to explore a world that had only just erupted and dissolved all alone.
Her breath shudders, trembles, and her heart feels too tight in her chest, her bones too tight beneath her skin. There are no tears on her face though, no sobs catching like burrs in her throat - and when her eyes lift again, peeling apart the leaves in the trees to watch the moon climb in the sky, she wears this isolation like a mask against a crumbling face. This is not the first night she has spent alone, nor the first night spent away from home and her family, but it is the first time she has ever had to wonder if there was any family to go back to at all.
It is subtle until it isn’t.
Until suddenly the mountain is stolen from beneath their feet and she is falling forever into a sky with no end.
There isn’t enough time to say anything, not enough time to see if the horror that etches across her face is reflected in the pale curve of his. There is only enough time to reach for him as she falls, to try and catch his mane between her teeth, to steady herself against his side. But she cannot reach, and when her mouth closes it is only around a single white feather which pulls free from his wing. She has enough time to wonder if he can fly on those wings, with one so much smaller than the other, enough time to wish for it to be so before the dark reaches out to take her.
She wakes in the dirt and she is alone. It takes roughly the length of a heartbeat to notice first the soft white feather resting beside her nose, and second that Tobiah is not there. None of her family is. There are strangers in the distance and some of them yell, but most are quiet like she chooses to be. She takes a moment to struggle to her feet, sore and bruised, with red peering out like tears against the white, but startlingly unharmed for having fallen from one mountain to the next. Dropping her nose to the ground she picks up that feather, twisting again so that she can wedge it into the knots and tangles of mane near her withers. It holds fast beside the bone snowflake, stark against her dark mane, and with an ache in her chest she wills it to stay.
It takes nearly an entire day to make her way back down the mountain, longer than some, perhaps, because she had stayed so long looking for her family. But when the sun peaked in the sky and began to drop again, she mirrored its descent, picking a trail that looked well and recently travelled.
It was dark by the time she reached the bottom, darker still as she made her way across unfamiliar land to a forest she did think she recognized. She couldn’t be certain in the endless blue of night, lit only by the water light of a narrow moon and the pin pricks of stars, but this place felt familiar. Quietly she found a spot in the among the trees, an empty spot, a spot not already filled with someone as lost and lonely as she, and settled in. At the first light of morning she would go searching for a familiar face again, but until then it felt stupid to explore a world that had only just erupted and dissolved all alone.
Her breath shudders, trembles, and her heart feels too tight in her chest, her bones too tight beneath her skin. There are no tears on her face though, no sobs catching like burrs in her throat - and when her eyes lift again, peeling apart the leaves in the trees to watch the moon climb in the sky, she wears this isolation like a mask against a crumbling face. This is not the first night she has spent alone, nor the first night spent away from home and her family, but it is the first time she has ever had to wonder if there was any family to go back to at all.