"What, what was her n-name?" Raven asked.

Narrator looked up at him as he brought his wings around her in a soft embrace. She leaned against him, resting her head against his smooth chest and bringing her hands up to his hips, burying her fingers into the feathers. It haunted her. She closed her eyes and trembled as it floated up to the surface of her mind. As it came to her, she also began to know the one that had died. Narrator could feel the love that one had felt for him. She longed to feel that love herself.

Struggling against tears, she whispered "Horse."

Selfishly, she had not wanted to give it to him. Naming his love was only bringing her back to him more clearly. If she stayed a vague memory, maybe there would be room left in his heart. But she could not steal this from him. Whimpering, she hesitated before giving him more of her.

He repeated the name carefully without stuttering it, "Horse."

He could see her now. Glorious snowy mane falling over her shoulders where he had once grasped onto her to keep from falling while she ran. Silver hooves pounding against the earth. Silver eyes looking into his.

Tears streamed black lines down his face and dropped onto Narrator's brown hair. Sobbing, he felt a swirling of conflicting emotions. The grief of loosing her became a deep mourning. Yet he felt a gratitude for Narrator and it wanted to become something more. The difference between the physical forms of these women was profound. But he could see their fundamental kindness at the center of their hearts. Their spirits were the same. Longingly, he entertained the idea that Narrator was Horse reincarnated and returning to him. He dismissed this as foolishness.

"She moved like wind and water. Graceful and delicate in every movement." Narrator's voice cracked with a sob and she held onto him tighter.

Her strength faltered and she crumpled to her knees. This beauty that rode through her mind had been slain a second time by her failure to tell the story. Horse and Raven had been forgotten, only coming back into being with the Telling. That was when the full power of her ability was known to her. With that knowing was a crushing burden.

"Forgive me," she murmured while clutching weakly at the feathers on his thigh.

Looking down at her, perplexed, he could not comprehend what she wanted from him. Forgive her? For what? There was no sin in this Telling. She had pulled him back from Erebos and had breathed his self back into being with each word.

"She could also change into a human. But it was folly for you to both take this form, for you could not touch the ground. But she was permitted a short distance into the sky. On your back, you would carry her while you skimmed over the plains."

The others crowded around them, reaching past Raven to stroke her hair and to touch her face. They all begged to be named. What horrors lay in their pasts that they had become such twisted things? There was no baring what they asked of her. She could not bare this story that still spooled out from her even now.

"Her hair streamed in the wind, long and silver. Singing, she stretched her arms out side while gripping you tightly with her thighs. You longed to hold, but knew that this would destroy you both. Who had created the two of you so cruelly?" The last was a question of her own. There was no forgiveness for a god that would eternally separate these lovers.

Shoving at Raven's legs, he stepped back and she stumbled to her feet. The others filled the space he'd created. More hands fell upon her and indistinct voices clamored for her attention. She slapped at them and turned only to face others who all sought their past. All looking for their names. But this story was consuming her, more and more coming to the surface. She could not contain it, could not Tell it. There was nothing she could give these others.

"No," she whispered.

They pulled away as if struck. Taking advantage, she ran. Covering the distance back to where the light was, she fled them. Torturous cries followed her, but none pursued. For this she was grateful. Facing them was a nightmare now that she knew what was expected of her. Stumbling, she caught her self on the Telling Tree. The air was more oppressive here then it had ever been.

But their torment reached her even there. Voices rising up in the night and filling her ears with their rage at her denial. What she did not know was that this came every night. The Named Ones hid in their houses and covered their ears, fearful of these bellows and growls. They could remember such suffering for it had once been their own. Some had been able to cast this state of being from their memories, but in their hearts they could still feel it. A scar that they could never erase.

Wailing, her body slid down the tree. Bark scraped her skin and the pain of it was a pleasure, distracting her from them for a blissful moment. In a heap among the rippling roots, she let the tears overcome her. There was no telling how much time had passed. The sun never completely set here. Always bright even into the night. Erebos had been banished from this place, but it offered her no solace, she could still see its darkness clinging to all the edges.

Could they come out of the darkness if she'd given them names? Were the Nameless Ones trapped in darkness because she hadn't unlocked their prisons? As an answer to her question, Raven landed next to her and crouched down to regard her more closely. She had condemned them in her flight. This sin gripped her chest tightly and her breath caught. Suffocating, she tried to gasp for air.

Raven leaned down and pressed his lips to hers and gave her his breath. Sucking it into her lungs with greed she came back to that place she dreaded. Wishing he had let her go, she touched her fingers to the hallow at the base of his neck. He easily cradled her head in the palm of his large hand so that she looked up at him. His other hand supported her back, arching her upwards slightly.

"Why, why did you f-flee?" he asked.

Incapable of explaining, she reached out to him. He met her and lifted her from the warmth of the tree. Pressing her firmly against his chest, he offered her an inarticulate tremulous song. It stuttered and grated in the same manner as his speech. But it was soothing and beautiful all the more for the broken way that it felt. It was as broken as he was. Even though she had named him, he was not whole. Now they both knew that he would never be.

Pain gripped her heart and she knew that her wound had reopened. Hot blood poured out over her breast and down her stomach. The heat was an accusation and a reminder that painted her skin with her sin. They were as entitled to their pain as she was to what she felt now. But theirs would also be hers. There was no Telling that did not mean feeling.

Trilling, he sat and settled her carefully in his lap. As a parent would comfort a precious child, he rocked her. Smoothing her damp hair from her face, he kissed her fore head, his lips barely brushing her skin. Sleep beckoned, but she shook it off knowing that only nightmares and terror waited her there.

He knew that she suffered and felt the agony of helplessness. There was no lifting this from her. But he was not sorry that he had caused it. The misery was born from the knowing. How could he regret returning to himself? But he wondered if he would fall back into nothing if it would free her now. But if he did so, would she forget him as he forgot himself? There was no remembering without her feeling it too. He was glad that he did not know the way back to nothing. It meant he did not have that choice to make.

"Th-thank you," he offered. His voice grating.

Such a heavy price she paid. She shrugged out of her vest, ignoring where it fell. Her unsteady hands worked her shirt open and she looked down at the wound that marred her chest. It was no longer the small hole it had been. Jagged edges crept from the left over to the central line of her sternum. Pressing her fingers into it, she gasped at the pain.

He helped her pull off the shirt and the bra so that she was completely bare from her waist up. The wound continued to grow. It stretched itself, opening her neck and stomach. He watched. As always, he was powerless to stop it. Death was calling to her and he heard its voice. A deep thrumming in his bones. But he knew that if she willed it, she could close this wound. She had done so every other night.

"P-please," he wheezed.

"Forgive me for having left you there so long," she said weakly.

"There, there is nothing to for-forgive. You had, had nothing to do, do with our ban-banishment there," he said, then added "You, you could not, not bring us b-b-back all at once." Each night he had watched her and the truth of this was clear.

"Please, say you forgive me," she whispered even more quietly now.

"I forgive you," he said, clearly and loud.

She smiled. Glad that she could leave with that.

He whispered broken sentences that offered efforts of reassurance. Without hearing him, she pushed hard with her fingers, pressing them into the wound and pulling on its edges. Breaking the wound open deeper, the blood rushed over her hand and flowed freely onto both of them. His feathers drank it up, thirsty. Her head fell back and his face blurred. Was he loosing his form again? He could feel himself becoming more human.

"D-don't d-die," he begged her.

But silence had settled over her. Nothing was as real as the pain. Throbbing with her heart beat it pushed life out of her. Limp, her hand fell into her lap. All her strength was lost and she smiled. There would be no more Telling. The work was finally done. Each could tell their own story now. Discovering it with each passing day as they decided what they would become.

She was not necessary. Seeing that now, her smile became brighter. They would grow without her. The gift she had was what kept them stagnant and foul. Beauty would bloom in them when they were forced to know without her. With her last breath, she whispered her only regret "I'm sorry, I have to leave you." She longed to stay with him and to discover where her heart would take her, but she could endure these imposing stories no longer.

Her death brought a powerful hunger into him. Lips peeled back and revealed his fangs. A knew memory came back to him. Horse had been eaten. In his grief, he'd consumed her. Now that same ravenous need over took him. Leaning down he smelled her. Death was all that he held now. What ever it was that had made her an individual was gone now. Only flesh and bones.

Rending, he reduced her flesh to bloody ribbons. Devouring each strip as it came away from her bones which he picked clean. Powerful jaws broke down to the marrow and sucked it out. Discarding the shattered pieces, he sat in a ring of her discarded bits. Licking his lips, he felt shame for the crime he'd just committed. But he knew that it would not be his last.

Stretching out his wings, he rose up and looked over the crowd that now huddled around him. These creatures of the light covered their mouths and held each other in horror. Coming into full being, they too had come to know the truth of suffering. Had they not understood the way they had oppressed the Narrator? Did they not see the release she'd had?

Hating them, he cawed at them. Fleeing as their fear over took them, none looked back. It was just as well. Even he didn't want to think of what image he made now as he took flight, still wearing the Narrator's blood. He felt every thing human within him had died with her. Now he was nothing but the monster that had emerged from Erebos.