Extorris does not trust the Harvester.

No, distrust is not an apt description—he hates him. Viscerally, relentlessly, with everything he has. Because, to Extorris, the Harvester is a god. A god of the first frost, a god of death and decay and corpses damned to lie in wait for spring’s warmth to finally rot them. A god of emptiness, of sorrow, of longing for the clouds to part and the sun to spare its warmth again. 

The Harvester is a god of many things, none of which are forgiving. And Extorris hates him. 

“Galatea…” 

Extorris snorts, an audible threat to the ghastly courser rising from the earth beside him. The spirits rarely stray from the dungeons, but a select unlucky few will crawl up to the surface each year, desperate for the warmth of the sun just as he, too, had once been. Before this prairie had become a wasteland, before the Harvester had stolen the sun and its warmth for good.

“Your kind has no place here,” he hisses, low and raspy, as he tramples his hooves through the spirit’s translucent body. He knows the contact has no physical consequences to the ghost, but it screams at the touch anyway, sinking back down through the snow and soil in exile. “Leave me be,” he adds to the empty prairie, the landscape still and silent and grieving.

There is a sharp cry above, from somewhere behind the cloudy sky, and Extorris whinnies back. His voice echoes around him, desperately searching for signs of life to dampen the sound, but there is nothing here except himself and the snow. 

But then—life! Glorious, frantic, spitfire life! A little sparrowhawk erupts from the clouds, near-imperceptible with its white-and-gray feathers, announcing itself with another shriek and vibrant orange eyes pinpointed on its master. It dips its wings, spiraling downward in massive circles, taking up as much space as it possibly can to make up for the empty expanse surrounding it. And it isn’t enough—it could never be enough, for a little hawk to compensate for miles of nothingness—but the bird doesn’t acknowledge nor recognize this. Oh, to have the ignorance of a bird of prey, just happy to exist without a purpose! To feel free in the loneliness of solitude!

‘I have returned, Master,’ he imagines the hawk to say, bird-voice proud and warm and slicing through the silence of the world like a hoof through snow. ‘It has been a while.’

And, “It has,” he agrees, ignoring the echoes that follow. “I've missed you, Friend.”

The bird bobs its head, as if to nod, and settles upon Extorris’s poll. He frowns at the weightlessness, unable to feel the physical presence of his companion—likely due to the numbness from the cold, he supposes, but he longs for the comfort of physical touch that he can feel. 

But he doesn't need it, in the same way that he doesn’t need the sun, so he surrenders himself to the discomfort, a skill that comes easily to him these days.

“The winter will be a vicious one, this year,” he says conversationally, ignoring the bitter ache in his stomach that begs him to chastise the Harvester for his sorrow. “I suppose it's a good thing that anything else that lived here died in last winter’s cold snap—if they couldn't handle that one, this would surely do them in.”

When no response is offered, Extorris rolls his eyes as far up as he can, trying to catch sight of the sparrowhawk. Ever the helpful companion, Friend hops from his poll to his forehead, leaning over to stare into his right eye with both of its own eyes. Its expression could almost be mistaken for sympathy, if Extorris were naive enough to think it possible.

‘The winter will be a vicious one, this year,’ it seems to repeat, in agreement and in warning, before lunging off of his head and plummeting into the snow headfirst.

Its body sinks like a stone in water, disappearing beneath the white quicker than Extorris can react. He panics, pawing frantically at the snow with a numb hoof, shoveling snow and slush away from the hole his companion left behind. And then, when his right hoof becomes too numb to continue, he switches to his left and continues in his digging.

“Friend!” he cries out, haunted by the mocking echoes that serve as his only response. The world seems to tilt and sway around him, threatening to flip and dump him into the vacuum of space, but would it really be that much different from the dreary prairie? 

It feels like hours before he finally stills, sides heaving with painful breaths, mind just as numb as his body.

There is nothing.

Nothing except snow, clouds, and the uprooted skeleton of a little sparrowhawk, bones picked clean by the passage of time.