i am a leaf on the wind

The thought of something in return never crosses Lyanna’s mind. It’s her job to help others, but more than that, she simply enjoys it. She is glad to give her time to the place that has given her a second change. She is glad, selfishly, to have a little magic back (wind magic, at that). And she is glad too to see the filly look eager, to watch her diving through the trees and examining the way everything looked and smelled.

She doesn’t need any more thanks than the girl’s excitement, the grin that creeps on her face and her chirp of agreement. She doesn’t need any more thanks than knowing that, if nothing else, Lyanna will send the girl back into the world as healed and healthy as she can. It makes her a little nervous, truthfully, to send a girl not yet grown into the world with no home. Did she have a family somewhere, at least? Did she have a safe place to go? Lyanna wonders, but does not ask. It seems too personal, too much like a question that is likely to hit a nerve she does not want to strike.

No, in the end, all she can do is offer the girl a place here, if she ever wants it. The knowledge there’s a place to come back to if she ever needs it, regardless of whether Lyanna is here or not. The Edge, as far as she can tell, is unlikely to ever turn someone away. Not someone with good intentions looking for a place to call their own. Lyanna was slowly learning that she was far from the only one here that had come to the Edge seeking sanctuary. For her, she’d love her mother and father, her sister and brother. She’d had no one, and one step back in her own land meant certain death.

It’d been harder than she cares to admit to stop living beneath that mountain of sorrow. Less than a year ago, she never would have thought that anywhere could be home again. But somehow, this place had become that. Somehow, she had friends. She had something just a little bit more than friendship in Apollo. She had responsibilities and a place where she always felt safe. And it was more than she ever dreamed of having again.

Lyanna doesn’t press the girl anymore though, noting the way her ear shifts and the glance back. The girl makes a sound that sounds like she understands the offer is there, and that is enough. Lyanna’s not about to force the girl to stay here – she’s not taking a hostage. No, she simply wants the girl to know there’s a choice here, even she ever wants to give it a shot.

After a moment, she tosses her head in the direction of the cliffs, and Lyanna takes a moment to figure out what the question might be, guessing when she does finally answer. “The cliffs are rather beautiful. On a nice day, it’s possible to fly off them without getting slammed into the cliff face by the wind. Or if you go northeast, you’ll eventually find the Basin. But if you go northwest, just a bit away from Helovia, you’ll find nothing but endless sea. I’ve never been able to go far enough to find anything else out there. It does feel like the end of the world.” She says it with some reverence in her voice though, like she finds this beautiful rather than sad or intimidating. But sometimes she likes to dream this is really as far as any horse could go. That she ran to the edge of the world and found solace there. It’s a romantic, silly way to think of her life, but she does anyway, indulging in that pleasure.  

watch how i soar.

lyanna