Tear Down Heaven

Tear down the sky
Give me a reason why!

Pebbles rattled and the ground shook when Rohan's body first struck the earth. He was up again in a flash, his legs already scrambling to run. Finding purchase in the soft sand, he sprang forward. The ground rose sharply. Sand faded to rock and red dirt. Up, up, up--and suddenly it was level, jutting out over a canyon so deep he wouldn't have seen the bottom had he cared to look. He didn't. The Cavitto slid to a halt at the end of the ledge. When he reared, his massive hooves pawed furiously at the sky and lightning slashed across the looming gray clouds.

"What have you done? Tell me! Tell me, what have you done?!" his voice echoed over the empty space. His tail lashed angrily at the silence. "Answer me!" A bolt of lightning with power far greater than his own flashed across the sky and the voice that followed in its wake was somehow terrifying and comforting at the same time.

"No. What have you done?" Zeus's fury was palpable in the air, matched only in desperation by the fallen Cavitto.

"I have done nothing. They have done nothing!" He refused to let his helplessness show in his voice. Lightning flashed repeatedly and the wind picked up, flinging dirt and little rocks against his hide. The jewels he had somehow retained glowed softly against the rapidly darkening sky. They continued to fall. Wherever he looked he caught the glowing trail of another four-legged body as powers were stripped and horns faded away. Guardians cried out for their lost companions and were lost to the wind.

Helplessness. Rohan had felt it only a few times in his life. He despised it more than anything. Being in control meant protecting those around you, and he was always in control. Always. Screams echoed in his ears. Their home, gone. God-given powers, gone. Guardians, gone. All...gone. It was unreal. It had to be a mistake.

"You have betrayed me," the God's voice hissed from beyond the clouds.

And suddenly, he knew. Baroch. Akina.

"I have not. They have not!" Power sizzled and struck at the ledge he stood on. Pieces of it crumbled away and fell into the darkness. He reared again, defiance in every line of his body. "You punish all for the sins of one? What kind of petty God are you?"

Silence roared in his ears. Had he not once been one of Zeus's favorites, he was sure he would have been struck down where he stood. The lightning-esque markings slashing down over his shoulders had been an accident, something that drew him to the lightning God in the first place. When he had shown his exceptional leadership and fighting prowess, he had been allowed into the God's private stable before he was even fully grown into the massive stallion he would become. Under Zeus's direction he had been the starter of many a war...and the end of them. Now, he was nothing.

Whirling on his haunches, he barreled back down the path, sliding where the earth gave and cursing under his breath. While he still felt the connection to his Guardian, it was faint, and the mighty stag was nowhere to be found. With no way to vent his anger except to destroy things, he set about doing just that. The soft sand exploded into bits of glass as he leapt into the little dunes. As if the devil himself was on his back, he reared and bucked and ran, lightning bolts cracking heavily into the ground around him seemingly at random. There was nothing he could do to stop what was happening. Nothing he could do, or could have done, to protect them. Baroch loved Akina. He had said so himself. Was that love worth all this? Would Baroch have continued to see Hades' mare if he had known the consequences? Questions pounded relentlessly in his head.

When he finally came to a stop, sides heaving and coat darkened with sweat, he looked up. Ozone, a smell he had come to love, hung heavily in the air. Glass sculptures towered around him, their twisted forms shimmering in the deepening darkness. The blue glow radiating from his jewels appeared to light them from within. They jutted up from the ground and formed a half-circle around the Cavitto, joined only by the broken pieces that hadn't stood a chance against the lightning's wrath. The wind whistled through them and when the first raindrops began to fall, he turned his face to the sky.

"I'll find a way home," he told the clouds. "It is you who has betrayed us. And when I'm done proving to you all the things you know are already true, all the things I already am...I will be the one leaving you."