Ouroboros Spine Cinders in the Hearth and Fire in the Home

Massaraq followed his anaa to the ulaq, he sat, bones clattering and folding and bending and cracking along the shuddering lines of his flanks as she bade him sit. He breathed though it was difficult and he was looking around, noting the things that had remained, and those that had changed. No longer did his and his brothers' scent sit in the edges. Even the mixture of herbs had shifted slightly, those summer spring buds long since dried and those few hardy leaves that unfurled under winter's frost and autumn's shower of golds and reds were most sharp in the air.

The question echoed in his ears, but he forced his mouth to move to answer. His eyes took in her face, seeing him, and yet what was there to see reflected in her eyes? He could not see himself, could barely see her. To think it was to feel it over again a flash of darkness behind his hollow gaze and he felt his heart stutter. "So dark and I couldn't fight it, or feel myself, but it hurt. It hurt so much. Anaa, there was nothing." I was nothing. But to even say it was already a contradiction, the words themselves held the paradox, imprecise and difficult things as they were. A flicker, what did it mean? He did not know. But it yawned within him. Deep and empty.