It was cold. Paralysingly, piercingly cold, the kind that makes you simply want to curl up and wait for either an inevitable death or someone, anyone, to come by and help. Selene had a feeling the latter would not happen, wherever she was. Even if there were others in this place, the chances of anyone finding her were low indeed.

She could not see even her own arm's length in any direction; everything was obscured by a thick mist that permeated her very being. Not a part of Selene's body had been made for any climate colder than that of the temperate weathers of her homeland. She shivered, shuffling her hooves against the frosty ground and wrapping her arms around her human torso, naked except for a pair soft leather gloves. The metal of the bracelet on her upper arm added to her discomfort, having cooled noticeably during the short time she had been here.

She had never felt quite this lost or alone, not even when her tribe had disowned her for associating with whom they thought were the wrong kind of people. Here, she had no point of contact with anything familiar, nothing to hold on to. Only the mist, and the cold.

Looking at her sword, Selene contemplated dropping it. Yet a centaur warrior must never give up their weapon while in battle, and a battlefield was where she had been before finding herself here, surrounded by silence instead of the music of steel meeting steel, taunting cries of war and the scent of blood. Gripping the blade tighter, she moved on, not knowing where she was headed but needing to act to keep her composure.

If she had died, she would know soon enough. There were legends, stories about where you went after your life ended, but she would wait, and see. The amazon hoped, though, that just as suddenly as she had been brought here, she would also be taken back.

She still had many things to do, not the least of which was to sort out her relationship with one of the leaders of the opposing side. They both had been caused anguish by the circumstances that threw them apart, to fight against each other in the war, rather than flank to flank.

Selene supposed this might just be one of the stories the romantics would tell, many years from now - if she somehow found her way back, to the battlefield and to him. The tale would not survive to be told if there was not something to tell. She also supposed it was quite ironic for her to be in precisely the kind of a situation she had scoffed at only a few years ago. She had never been one for love stories. No, she had been born a warrior, and warriors, in her naïve eyes, did not have time for love.

It was getting dark. The centauress could only tell from the fact that she could see even less than before. Night was creeping upon this mist-covered land, and her imagination, selecting the worst possible time to manifest itself, conjured up images of unspeakable terrors hiding in the long grass brushing against her legs like thin, ghastly fingers.

She, the fearless amazon, began to prepare herself for death.

Selene trembled as a wind slowly began to blow, gaining strength with each passing second, billowing her hair and pushing wisps of the mist away. Straining her ears to confirm what she only dared to believe to be an illusion, she held her breath.

After merely a heartbeat, she broke into a run, springing forward like her life depended on it. Perhaps it did, at that. And suddenly she heard the deafening roar and the din of battle, and she recognised the voice nearest to her.

The amazon smiled when his sword collided with hers, and in a moment of impossible clarity, Selene knew where she had been. That cold, lonely place was her death without him on her side. Grimacing as the wound below her ribs finally made itself known, she charged, putting all of her emotion in one single cry.

She would die a warrior's death, but not as his enemy. She would die of wounds in a battlefield, but not today.

For she knew that his death without her would be just as lonely.




_{Inspired by http://images.epilogue.net/users/portalrun/centaur-ess.jpg}





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