The caves were large enough to hold their own weather systems--but still, thunder was something which Khloros did not often hear. And thunder, indeed, was rumbling: ominous, deep, rolling through the vast space above. Rain poured down, slicking his hide, washing it near-clean, and something in him--some vague, forgotten instinct--was relieved at how... natural this all was.

The plagued horse had not dared to venture into Eridanus since the cats had assaulted him, but now he slipped in only briefly, and under the cover of the storm, simply to find something to eat. Grass was sparse in Orion, and the wounds inflicted upon him by the ram Aries, though healed, still ached from time to time--making prolonged searches for new grazing grounds painful, at best.

But Khloros knew that he was hunted. He had been too... brash, perhaps. Too bold. It did not matter, now; someone else would finish his work, if not him.

Clotho. Lachesis. Atropos.

A faint chant, dimmed by memory, flickered through his mind. His long head came up, his grass-chewing ceasing and ears flicking as he tried to find its source. But it was only in his memories. Still-... It seemed to be louder off to his right.

Quiet, he stepped off the path, sickly hooves treading a nonetheless harmless trail over the wet plants as he went. His plague caused flora no harm.

Clotho. Lachesis. Atropos.

The leaves crunched softly underfoot. He lowered his head, down to where the noise seemed to call him; perhaps he had merely sensed its faint magicka from that short distance. Or perhaps it was pure chance. But a stone, as that of a stormy sky that he knew only in his dreams, lay nestled in among the moss and twigs, buried in a dark and sunken indent in the foliage. It was well-hidden, and the horse snorted softly, considering.

If I am soon to die, another must take my place. I do not wish to perpetuate the cycle, but it must be finished. Perhaps it is destiny.

Khloros summoned up his magic, willed it to him in a vast flood, ignoring how it drained him, ignoring how he suddenly ached even worse--and he poured it, all of it, into this strange and shimmering, beautiful stone.

His energy flowed from him, and he was left weaker, reeling, but he could sense too that the stone now crackled with its own life. His pale eyes opened, and he spoke softly.

"Go, and serve death, as I do."

Then he paused, a faint and horrified thought coming over him. What if this is how I was made? Not merely generated, no--not spawning into being of my own accord. But what if I am one of a thousand, one after the other, failing to end the cycles?

Khloros stood staring at the stone--his successor, or so he imagined--for a very long time, before turning and pacing away.

Moments later the springy foliage had hidden any proof of his prints; his scent was washed clean away by the rain, and the leafy branches and ferns had fallen back to cover the stone in its entirety.

________________

BRING OUT YOUR DEAD