Pain, intermixed with sandy ashes. A foul taste, rancid, still lingering on her tongue in a moment amongst the dusty plains. There were no words, in the dust, in the echoes. Here, it was silent. No love shared, no joyous refrain. Just dust, and silence.

Standing, a feat all its own in the broken sands. Moving, a second miracle, to find her staggering onward, another form not far. A daughter, gifted of words, speaking no more. A moment spared, one of many for peace. Forward she moved, forward she had to.

The day moved, the night rose, and cycles to repeat. In time, she gathered. In time, she collected. In time, they would arrive. The winds would keep her company, the sand, dry her tears, thousands of names, ten score more of memories to sift through, and bury along with each.

It would come in time, the melancholy, and the pain. Numbness would last only so, but she could only walk forward, even as she yearned to let the sands catch her. None could see, none would. Kingdoms of mighty yore, trembled, but in such an end, were dust. Only memory, only time, and only a head held high to endure.

Soon, she smiled, in her pain, of wounds desiccated and cleansed of ichor. Plates ground and cleansed through sands scourging touch. A moment of living, through the numbness. To know, to scar, and to endure through it all.

And so, were they gathered, their valkyrie, their shepherd, angel and mother. The equestrians would come, of such she was sure. But here was not for them, this was for her, of those left behind. Another etch, another wound, to mar a broken ruler of a broken people. They would endure, for nothing else mattered.

So she began, a quiet drone, of wind whipping through, of wings, broken, magic and more billowing the flames higher unto the sky. A storm to gather, a storm to make, and bring life through the passing into tomorrow. Tirelessly she would work, through pain, through sobs, and tears, through her dreams and pleading future.

Night and day, each to pause upon the dawn, and upon the dusk. Soon, the bonfire began, and sooner still, did the storm begin. A conflagration of black smoke, stretching into the horizon. Only now, did she pause, only now did she sit, collapsing into her children gather so in her aid.

And smiling she was, tired, beaten, broken, but smiling in part, breathlessly, bonelessly, for she had assured them passage, and nothing else mattered with the first drops of rain. There would be no hunger to claim them, to claw them. But freedom of their former shells, worn and broken in such a land.

The rain would fall. The rain, would pour forth is bounty, and to a barren land, it would grow, if only for a day, its hunger too, sated, for life to bloom. Now, she could rest, now she would only need endure the gentle rain.

Author's Note

This was the other one, inspired by a lovely work of art, and of some relaxing aspects from mynoise.

I will have more, but for once.. I'm not feeling the melancholy, or as down.