after the fire drove out the sparrows; any

[magnus]

 
He has no right to come back here, he thinks. 

He has no right to wander into a home he has so thoroughly disappointed, to a family he has not protected the way that he should. They are better off without him—without his ghosts, without his failures, without the weakness that permeates a soul too old, too miserable to be of use to anyone. 

Still—

Still.

Still, it is not long before sooty legs carry his scarred golden body from the embrace of the unknown curves of a Beqanna that is constantly shifting and changing to the roads that he has so well-traveled. It is not long until his lungs begin to sting from the sulphur, until the air grows bitter and acid in his mouth. It is not long enough the land grows lush, the stallion crossing the waterways and entering into the heart of the land that he once helped create with those he had called friends. Those he had called family.

In this moment, this fragment of time trapped between breaths, it is entirely the same. If he wanted, he could simply close his eyes and pretend no time has passed at all. His children roaming the land. Ellyse walking the borders. Lucrezia, Dahmer, Warrick—all those who called it home resting safely.

But even he knows such things are not true and the reality sits like a heavy stone in his chest.

It does not deter him though or keep him from the path that carries him through Tephra, the sun gleaming as it hits his lacerated hide. He always comes back, even when he has no right. He comes back when he has spent decades beneath the ocean—rising up the banks with salt on his tongue and sand in his mane. He comes back when war is threatening the border and when peace has finally claimed the land.

He comes back with more and more ghosts each time, the burden of his guilt never easing.

And thus he comes back once more, with no pretense and no calls. He simply stands quietly near the heart of the volcanic land, gold-flecked eyes watchful as he swings heavy-jawed head to drink it all in.

out of the blue out into the loneliest place that you'll ever know
I carried the world just as far as I could but the damage had taken its toll