Ni'Srilan: The Desert: I WILL SHOW YOU FEAR IN A HANDFULL OF DUST;

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

The world, it is fire and brimstone.

He reared his proud but battered head, his muzzle turned towards the skyline in salute to the setting sun.

And I… I am ire and ice.

But those noble words, they did nothing to soon the burn in every pore of his flesh or the horror in the back of his brain.

The taste of ash and sulfur (mingled faintly with the acrid flavor of defeat) strung bitterly along his thick and heavy tongue. It took a colossal effort on his part to stir from his stupor, his haggard breath and weary mind had not any amount of respite, not since Solira..

A strangled gasp similar to a sob of shock shook his grey frame.

It was gone. Destroyed. The vanquishers of victory, those cruel feline figures, had descended and wrought to ruin his seashore.

He had not loved Solira, nor its inhabitants. This was no startling exception -- he had not loved many things.

Aquila was gone, and with her absence brought a strange sense of emptiness, as if the fiery cats had clawed away the last remaining chunk of his chipped soul. All that was left, between the inferno of ashes and the cries of terror -- all that was left was nothing.

Or so he thought, as he wearily once more returned to his old homestead.

Ni’Srilan evoked no feelings of scorn (but then, the true treason perhaps was that it created no stirrings of patriotism in his heart either) from the colt-stallion. No, just that faint, sickly, drained anticipation (like the way a man clutches hope in times of terror and convinces himself that surely, surely, this evil will come to an end) that rang in each footstep, coursed through each mechanical bob of his head, and sang through each violent pump of blood from his heart - - that remained.

That surely remained.

A sigh spilled from his lips.

It didn’t feel like home, but, as close as he could put it - - he was home.

THE INVICTUS

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.