"Father!" he heard his son's cry, his title sandwiched between sobs. He could see clearly out of only a single eye, the other was so swollen and bloody to be as good as blind. Every muscle ignored his call, and the agony in his chest drew out every second for as long as reality allowed. He killed me, he thought, the sound of his breathing was like a rattle. "Father!" Steorra cried out again, this time over him, looking down into his one good eye. He blinked, swallowed, gasping for air for which he was desperate for. He's killed me, he thought again, the image of the guard captain flashing in his mind. He could taste copper in his mouth. He didn't know if it were from his lungs or from his tongue. "Father, please be okay," Steorra whelped, pushing his forehead into Sunder's barrel, weeping into his chest. But he killed him, he thought finally, finding it hard to stay awake now.

"It's over," Sunder weakly assured, hearing his own voice. "It's over."

"Are you okay?" the colt asked him, sniffling.

Sunder swallowed. "I'm fine-" he lied, "-but I am feeling a little tired."

Steorra shakily inhaled and exhaled, looking at Sunder with quivering lips. Sunder knew the colt didn't believe him, but he could tell he wanted to. "Really?" he asked, sniffling, "you're not lying."

Sunder inhaled deeply through his nose, pursing together his lips before swallowing back a cough. "Just come close to me, son," he beckoned, straining to raise a hoof, "just come close and wake me when we get there."

Steorra immediately complied, hugging close to him, cheek pressed to his chest. "When we get where?" he asked, looking up to the stallion.

He didn't know. She said he'd know, but he didn't. He was just an idiot stallion grasping at the thin thread of hope he believed had existed. Looking at his son with his single good eye, he held back a sob. I've killed him. "Home, Steorra," he answered, wrapping a week hoof around his colt, "home. The snow. Cold. All of it. We'll be back soon."

"O-okay," Steorra replied quietly, and Sunder felt the colt's hooves tighten around him. "Just promise me you'll wake up when we get there."

He exhaled, and forced his eye closed, pressing his head against the floor of the train car; tightening his feeble grip around his son. "I promise," he replied, firm in his tone, "I promise."

He tried to swat away sopor's grasp, using the presence of his son as an anchor to the world of the living. As every minute passed, his mind grew darker, his body lighter. Soon enough, his eye would no longer open, his mind still lucid for a time. I'm sorry, he tried to say, I'm so sorry, Steorra. Yet the words fell still in his throat. I'm sorry...

Darkness consumed him... He dreamt of sand, of an old capital submerged within it, the buried skyscrapers like giant steel mausoleums for the millennia old dead. Images of an old time, decades ago, ones which were just as buried as the buildings were back then. Her face. It was always her face. The first time he saw it, emerging from the outside light whilst he was hidden away in the dark, looking for trinkets which belonged to the dead. Her stark white coat seemed to overpower the light around her, and her eyes were a colour he had seen only in the ocean, where Na and Tia’s light met; dark and beautiful. Azure. The eyes of his son. But the face, the face belonged to the mare he fell in love with… he couldn’t wait to be with her again.

"Father!" his eye parted, his ear twitched at the sound of his son's voice, roused from sleep. "Father!"

"What... What?" he replied, his mouth felt dry. His words left his throat without difficulty, the pain had subsided from his chest. Beside that, he immediately noticed the dimness of the light. It reminded him of Vanhoover but not as ashen, nor was the light as bright as he usually expected of the North. It almost felt like the South. "Where are we?"

"Home!" Steorra answered in exclamation, and Sunder could see his hooves pressed against the glass of the window, standing up on one of the chairs. His voice trembled, excited. "We're home! Come see! You were right."

He furrowed his brows. As he propped himself up, ready to climb onto his hooves, his back felt stuck to the floor. He yanked off it, looking behind himself. How much blood did I lose? The coagulated pool was large. He looked to his side, seeing grime around his wound. He tentatively pressed a hoof against the hole and yanked his hoof away, feeling... nothing. His next breaths left his chest all too quickly, confusion and fear wrapped around him in a coil, furrowing his brows he threw his eyes to Steorra, who continued to gawk outside the window smiling. "What do you see?" he asked him, getting onto his hooves, taking wary steps.

"Look!" his son encouraged, grinning at him with mirth. "It’s like you said."

I'm dead. I'm dreaming, he threw out his conclusions, however uncertain, and climbed into the booth with deliberate and careful movements. He felt fine, inexplicably. So what will I see?

He saw… snow. Just snow. Only snow. It was powdered across a seemingly unending expanse. He couldn't make out the silhouettes of mountains in the distance nor were there any signs of dead trees or that this snowfall had ever ceased. It looked like smooth flat pressed cloth, untouched for an uncountable number of years. It was an impossible perfect, and yet Sunder was laying eyes upon it. The clouds above were a similar plain, looking like an ocean of grey in the sky, no gaps to betray the source of light filtering through them. It was Tia that illuminated these lands, not Na. "When did the train stop?" he asked, voice quiet. "When did the train stop, Steor."

"Not too long after it started snowing," the colt answered, looking up to Sunder. "We're home. Aren't we, father?"

Sunder looked down at his son. There was some dry blood on his cheek. He quickly threw a hollow look to the dead stallion in the middle of the car, before setting his sights back on Steorra, exhaling through his nose. "No."

The cold hit his uncovered face like a punch, forcing his eye closed as he flinched against it. He poked his head past the door frame and saw that frost had already covered much of the locomote, nipping past his coat down to the skin. "Keep close," he bade Steorra, stepping out from the train and hopping down onto the snowy ground.He sank into several inches of the cold powder with a fresh crunch, the few seconds of exposure already giving the tips of his fur a covering of snow.

He helped Steorra down onto his back, where he kept him, so he wouldn't have to make laborious strides through the snow. The weight wasn't too bad ordinarily, but the weakness that weighed down his entire body persisted, making the act of carrying his son a challenge. "Where are going?" the colt asked, his voice barely audible over the torrent of snowflakes and powerful gusts.

Sunder knew the answer. It was the only answer he could give. The one he had parroted the instant he set forth on this journey. "North," he answered loudly, over the wind. "North and only North."

Having answered Steorra, he braced himself as he took his first step into the white oblivion. Beneath the show Sunder felt solid ground. Permafrost. Much like home. Yet the sky glowed with light which tried to break through the dense, snow spewing clouds. As he walked, it was as though the very weather itself fought to keep him from advancing. The wind grew stronger, snow seem to fall even thicker; the individual flakes larger. He required constant wiping of his eyes just to advance, and eventually gave up, walking semi-blindly ahead to find anyone, anything that indicated his goal…

But he found none.

The longer he walked into the snow covered land, the weaker he got, and the stronger his son’s grip tightened around him. Sunder knew the young colt was growing colder by the minute, and could only hope that the fire within himself was enough to ward off the unrelenting chill. Did she lie? He risked doubt, gritting his teeth against the gusts. Were you delirious? Were you? What is here, what did you find? he kept asking the questions. And as he asked them, doubt grew heavy in his heart. He felt his gait grow sluggish. He tried to keep doing, but it was as though his very life was being drained from him. He stumbled, then he fell, falling face first into the snow. Aurora, he thought.I killed our son.

He felt himself drift slowly away from the wind, the snow and cold, embraced by dark… until he was brought back into it again, feeling a small colt’s hooves push and prod into his side. “Father?”

“Son,” he said, low. Steorra’s face was close to his own. The volume of his own voice barely audible, even to his own ears. It was a miserable sight, a colt covered in snow, trembling in the hoof high flakes. I can’t move.

“Are you alright?” the colt asked, and Sunder could tell that he was too afraid for his own father to cry.

“I… I don’t think that I am,” Sunder answered, truthfully, his breathing laboured. He felt a weight on his lungs. “But you are.”

He watched as Steorra’s face scrunched, crying with no tears. The colt looked him up and down, his mind trying no doubt trying to conjure a solution. Something, anything. “Can I make you good again?” he asked, desperation hanging off his every word. Sunder could see the sorrow in his eyes, his colt’s hope hinging on the answer that he was given.

Sunder tried his best to smile, to shake his head, but he could do neither. “You can’t,” he answered truthfully, offering bluntness when he knew that his son desired some sort of respite. He couldn’t offer any.

“No. No, no, you’re wrong!” Steorra fired back, defiant, sobbing.

“Steor,” Sunder replied weakly, unable to match his son’s strength. “I’m sorry.”

Steorra said nothing thereafter, his head fallen, looking down at the ground; mirthless; silent. Sunder did nought but look at him. He seemed almost to blend in with the snowfall, and as more of it encrusted the colt, Sunder had to concentrate, lest he lost him. But that was the underlying fear he had. He was going to lose his son. He wanted to hold his boy as death took him. He didn’t want to die alone, afraid… but, he wouldn’t die cold. He couldn’t feel it anymore. I’m sorry.

“You have to go,” Sunder spoke with all the firmness he could muster, his throat dry.

“W-what?” Steorra stammered, either from the cold or disbelief, Sunder didn’t know which. The colt inched closer to him. Sunder knew his voice was failing him if Steorra needed to be so close.

“Go. Keep going. Try. Try to survive, Steorra,” Sunder ordered, but his voice was desperate, it was a plea.

“But… but I don’t want to leave you, father. I… I don’t want to be alone,” he whimpered.

“You won’t be alone, son,” Sunder replied, steeling his jaw to keep conscious. “I will be with you. Truly. In memory. In your blood. In your heart. I’ll keep you warm. Even when I’m not there to hug you.”

Steorra said nothing for a while. Sunder resisted sleep. He had to hear, see, any kind of confirmation from his son. He needed to know, he had to know before he died. Steorra closed his eyes, lips trembling. He gave a nod. A singular, pitiful nod. “I love you.”

Sunder kept stoic. He didn’t let his pain become evident on his face. No grimace, or frown, or sob. “I love you too, son.”

Sunder allowed his eyes to shut, and he kept them that way for quite a while. He didn’t count the seconds. After some time has passed, he opened them again. He was gone, not even far off as a silhouette in the white…

Live.

Author's Note

In the slow process of finishing up loose ends. I have known how to end this particular fic for literal years now, but have never gotten around to finishing it. I had tremendous difficulty getting to Sunder's death. I had many, many ideas for dialogue, for how it happens, and for how to end the chapter on. I am still not satisfied. I never have been with much of my work. However, with the hardest chapter out of the way, the next will come with ease. I hope that you are ready for a surprise.