cassiopeia
it is not in the stars to hold our destiny
Two pools of vibrant azure peered out across a vast expanse of ivory, the beholder's hooves growing cold as she stepped lightly across it, her legs suspended abnormally high with each stride. "Momma, what is this?" Came a young, vernal voice, its tone alluded with a frail, yet shrill feebleness. She wasn't sure if she wanted to touch it, and her question had been accorded with a bit of caution. She disliked the way the cold radiated from it, diffusing her petite hooves with a nipping chill - she was used to warmth and the sensation of amber grains squelching beneath her.
"Snow." Averred a much more senescent voice, its tone laced with chords of affection. Of course, being as young as she was and having been born within a land perpetually hovering with warmth - an Oasis among a vast plane of aureate sand and russet stone - Azulee hadn't seen anything quite like it, and the celestial dame insisted on explaining the foreign substance to the young damsel in a way she might understand. "When the clouds get really cold, stuff drops from them - instead of rain, that stuff is something called snow."
Cassiopeia bounded to the side of the lightning-esque flicka, a gust of air billowing from her unfurled wings, causing a particularly fluffy patch of snow to become airborne. The intricate particles danced in the air around the filly like many delicate, ashen petals, a few alighting upon her hide. Azulee strained to watch as a few of them settled on her muzzle like small dabs of icing. Soon they dissipated from the warmth, absorbing into her fur as they thawed.
She wagged her tail, enthralled. "It's beautiful!" She exclaimed, flailing her lanky limbs as she leaped euphorically across the pristine alabaster that encompassed her, her peppered figure a stark contrast among the frigid powder. With fledged wings outstretched - their conformations downy and their plumes still small and expanding - she used them as leverage. Although still much less impressive than the flight appendages of those who had given her life, the belle's wings already evidenced signs of one day mimicking her grandmother's in magnitude.
Meanwhile, the Oracle gazed out across the Steppe, frost clinging upon each billowing plume of her breath. She could sense something - the presence of another; though it pervaded no immediate sense of danger. Inquisitvely, she searched for a figure among the rolling dunes of ice and snow.
Nothing - at least not yet.
The sun was sinking, permeating the atmosphere with vibrancy and opalescence. Surely Azulee would be desiring to get some rest soon, but for now she displayed no signs of fatigue - she was too consumed in frolicking amidst her new discovery. Gently, Cassiopeia nudged her lanky haunches, reigning in her attention as she began to head back toward the mainland. They had not traveled far, but surely they would not make it home by the time night fell upon the land.
As she walked, she thought she might have seen something; a silhouette amid the thin shroud of fog that had ensconced the air by the shore. Beyond the sound of the boisterous tides and the slush of snow beneath her hooves, she could discern the cadence of snow crunching; distant, yet easily heeded. She tipped her ebony-swathed muzzle ever-slightly to the darkening sky, allowing a soft whinny to vibrate her bosom.
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