It was morning, as the first winds of the season slipped beneath the eaves of the cabin, Theadosia neighed at the sky. The note was high and long, trailing away over the wooded, white valley. Lucias watched from the window, his horns glimmering jade green above the dark red of his mane. He wanted to go out to her, hearing the frustration in every question veiled in shrill expressions of frustration. He stayed put though; she would come in when she was hungry. Sometimes he wondered whether her appetite was for food or answers. Theadosia had always been full of questions—blunt, insistent, sometimes impossible. He found her thirst for knowledge endearing and a hopeful sign for her future, of which he was sure would be as bright as the snow outside. It was the first week snow that dusted the forest, and the day after her world turned upside down. She was hurt, confused, she wanted to know the difference between lonely and alone, loved and unloved. The questions burned inside her and watching made his chest tight and his eyes sting, her inner conflict playing in pained expressions across her beautiful strong features. He could see his daughter silhouetted against the hill, a growing shape against the pale reach of snow beyond. He sighed, remembering her first winter, how she’d been too small to play much but she had loved it. Seeing her now made that memory almost bitter sweet. He knew she would work her way through this, she was so smart, he had faith they would heal from this together. He stamped his hoof, shaking the table and the pile of papers he had begun to sort. His magic twined over the scene and set it all back in order. She would come in when she was ready. He’d let her gallop and squeal her questions out, when she had calmed he would be here to talk her through it. Pain was another way of learning, while never ideal, learning was the only truly valuable currency their kind had left. If he could change what happened he would, he would give his precious little girl her mother back but that wasn’t in the cards for the foreseeable future and he knew that was what chafed her heart. He returned to sorting letters. Most were bills, reminders of debts owed to various shops in town. Above it all, the scent of hot oats and cinnamon wafted through the air as they simmered above the surging flames in the hearth. A long time passed as he sorted through each parcel of mail. A crow tangled its claws in the gutter, cursing the wind. Lucias read each note twice, signing his name where signatures were called for. His gaze lingering on the empty space beside his own signature, where another name should have been. A firelit room appeared in the back of his memory, the quiet ruffling of turning pages every so often as the fire crackled loudly in the hearth. He heard it then; a soft, feminine chuckle trailed softly and sweetly in the air. He startled, looking around the room and out the window, he could no longer see Thea but she was not inside, he was entirely alone. The memory dissolved like hoarfrost, the only sounds being the snow hitting the window. He shivered; the fire had gone to cinders in the time he had been attending to the documents. Wordless, he rose and went to tend to the coals, sparking new, hot flames swiftly with his magic and a flint and stele. He rose from the flames to see the oatmeal he had been cooking, still steaming in the pot, as if it had still been under a consistent high flame. His eyes narrowed and he looked outside once more. He still couldn’t see Thea, with several smooth movements he slung his cloak across his back and secured it with a gold clasp on his shoulder. He stepped into the frigid afternoon and for a moment the cold stole his breath, sharp and glassy as the light. Coffee colored mud rimmed the edge of the porch, and the snow’s crust gleamed with a soft intricate beauty. He called her name once, then again, louder, the syllables thrown over the valley. No answer, only the echo of his own voice bouncing off the rocky terrain. The drifts were shallow but the cold bit through the fur at his hocks, and he gritted his teeth, hurrying beyond the line of stones that marked their property line. Thea’s prints were easy enough to find, deerlike in their delicacy, a looping trail winding up the embankment toward the edge of the forest. He followed, the world pin-drop silent except for the crackle of ice and the ragged sound of his own breathing. The trees wore their winter coats, black and white and unmoving, like the world had been painted in a single frame. The answer to his cries was not Thea, but silence. Then, as if summoned by his breath, the sun dimmed, and a hush fell over the valley’s white reach. The air thinned and the light became a bruised, unsteady thing. Lucias squinted. There was a line etched across the snow: a long, low shadow stretching from the hillside into the blue-bleached forest. Above, a disc slid over the sun, the old stories crawling up his neck at the sight. The fabric between the worlds thinning, the sky seeming to come apart at its seams. He heard a hoofbeat far up the hill, so sharp it was almost a crack in the ice. There: Theadosia, frozen at the crest, neck arched toward the sky. The eclipse was not so rare as to be unknown, but rare enough that the world seemed to be expected to stop for it. He remembered the rumors that some among their kind could see things in the darkness of a black sun and manipulate its energy for their own purposes.Theadosia stood rigid on the hill, outlined against the strange, waning light of the eclipse. Her neck was arched, and her nostrils flared, drawing in the thin, charged air. Lucias, his breath frosting in the unnatural stillness, knew that look. It wasn't just fear; it was a frantic search, a desperate attempt to understand what the darkening sky meant. "Thea!" he called, his voice strained against the mounting pressure in the air. "Come down! It's just an eclipse." she didn't respond. Instead, she began to trot forward, hooves finding purchase on the icy slope. But she wasn't heading toward him. She was moving toward the encroaching darkness, toward the heart of the eclipse's shadow that clung to the edge of the forest. Fear clenched Lucias's heart. He knew Theadosia was searching for something beyond simple answers, some deeper truth hidden in the fabric of the world. But that truth, he suspected, came at a price. He surged forward, the snow crunching beneath his hooves. "Theadosia, stop! It's dangerous!" She finally paused, turning her head, her eyes gleaming with an unnatural light. "She's calling, Father," she whispered, her voice barely audible above the rising wind, ice and snow stinging his cheeks. "She says she has the answers." Lucias froze. She? Who was calling to his daughter from within the eclipse? A chilling premonition washed over him. He knew the old tales, the stories of entities that dwelled between worlds, entities that could whisper promises of knowledge and power, or other the reality, magic users whose magic was stronger during celestial events, hijacking their energy to accomplish feats of mesmerising power. Feats like pretending to be a benevolent god to ensnare unwitting victims. Either way he wasn’t taking any chances."Don't listen to it!" Lucias roared, magic crackling and pulsing around his horns. "The answers you seek are here, with me!" Theadosia hesitated, torn between her father's desperate plea and the alluring call emanating from the darkening woods. A single tear traced a path through the thin layer of frost on her cheek. "I have to know, Father," she said softly. "I have to know why we have no memory of my mother." The wind howled, and the eclipse reached its peak. In that moment of absolute darkness, Theadosia turned and sprinted into the shadows, leaving Lucias alone beneath the bruised sky, the weight of unanswered questions heavier than the falling snow. His chest ached with feelings he knew all too well, loneliness and fear. He sprinted after her, using her scent to trail her in the enveloping darkness. He followed her until the light of the winter sun came shining through. Suddenly however, he could not find his daughter’s scent. “Thea!” he spun in place, looking in every direction, his panic growing to a heart pounding nightmare. “Theadosia!” he screams as he sprints in the direction he thinks is mostly likely the direction she went. He’d seen no prints anywhere and for hours he scoured the snow covered hills, his voice raw and hoarse from screaming her name over and over. It wasn’t until the next morning Lucias stumbled into their cabin and collapsed in front of the smoldering embers, their minute heat warming his body, numb from the cold. He stared into those flickering coals with lifeless eyes which eventually closed and the exhausted stallion slipped into the realm of dreams, carrying with him his sorrows. The veil of magic was still thin and the feelings crossed with him, developing what he saw.