The sunlight illuminates the patches of snow littered across the blooms of flowers, and lush greens of grass. It turns the snow to flame, pristine,
gleaming with ethereal light. In front of her gaze, however, is the rocky coastline of the north. Patches of ice litter the crashing waves, though the stretching
sea is calm. A mere reflection of the deep, cerulean blue of the sky.
She stands amidst the rocks, breathes the salty scent of the ocean. A bitter chill pervades through the air, a reminder that she is far
north of the warm lands she so often crosses. It clashes with the warmth of the sun, though it is welcomed in the heat
of summer. Crisp, sweet oxygen fills her lungs with life.
It reminded her of a different time. A chill day of autumn, when she had
pressed to her mother's side in a futile attempt at warmth.
A night when her life changed.

.."My sweet, fret not, you are safe. Awaken." The gentle tones of her mother turned into the harsh hisses of the demon behind her back,
following her, chasing her, hunting her. Death rolled off it's scaly hide in waves, foam drips from its maw it's breath
smells of rotten meat. Terror encases her, as the warmth of the hideous beast's breath touches her neck. If she does not act now,
the demon will swallow her whole. Turning, the filly faces her hunter with the primal urge to survive in her veins. Crown dips, raises, and meets its target
with utter panic gleaming in her dark orbs. A choked breath escapes the demon, her hunter is lodged upon the little obsidian weapon, and she finds it amazing
that her crown has not snapped in two. A dream? The world vanishes in a cloud of smoke, eyelids fluttering open to view the speckled red flesh of her
dam's chest. A scream echoes into the night air, though she is not sure whose it is. Her mother, or her own? With unbridled shock, she attempts to rank her small frame away,
only to further maul the chest of that which she loved so dearly. The weapon slid free finally with a sickeningly wet pop, liquid the shade of red wine dripping off it's
tip. A scene of gore, her childish face specked with red, her mother's clouded gaze and red maw, the light inside her orbs turning into a empty room. Death, death, death, she cries for her father, though her own gaze is empty. She cannot accept this as reality, she cannot, she cannot have murdered.. she couldn't..

A frosted over expression touches the indigo orb's of the darkened lady. She does not move. Her frame has turned into a statue, a unwelcome furl of emotions
threatens to swallow her whole. The corners of her mind scream at her with rage, she does not feel, she does not feel, she does not feel.
Stop. Go back. Repeat.

.."The child is damned. What girl kills her dam without showing even the smallest hints of remorse?" The filly stands in the midst of a crowd of the council, those which judge her life with words of steel and gazes of hatred. Wings, feathers, the crow king stands in front of her. Yellow orbs that shine down towards her own empty ones with a boiling mix of contempt and disgust at her existence. What has she done, what has she done? They gawk at her hind, at the witches symbol upon her rump. They label her cursed, a child of mayhem. The crow king silences them with a stomp of the hoof, harks falling back into the tendrils of oiled mane. "We will not shelter the childe of Hades. A banishment. My judgment is final, if she is seen within the walls of my kingdom, let her be burned at the stake for her crimes." The breath of the king is sour as he leans his dome down to gaze directly into her dead orbs. A curl of the maw, into a wolves' snarl. "Damned girl. You should grovel at my hooves for the mercy I have given you on this day. Leave my sight, before I decide to break that pretty crown on your dome and hang it in my castle as a trophy. Be gone with you."...

Is she bitter towards the winged breeds? Perhaps it's her history with them that turns her so. Twists her gut with hatred, perhaps she expects them to label her a witch, too. And maybe she is a witch, maybe she is cursed. Maybe, she's damned. She grieves with her soul, yet the mirror of her expression is steel. She doesn't understand how other's manage to show their expressions with such trust and ease, as if it is a normal experience for them to undergo. She was a slave in her own kingdom, even the children of the peasants held above her. Laughed at her, cackled with glee as they found they could taunt her from the air, drop rocks upon her back and watch as she could but run and hide beneath a pitiful shelter.
Stop. Go back. Repeat.

..“Well, my black dove. I find myself here as a warrior banished. My family were fighters for hire, until we lost our final battle, and as our punishment we were exiled, separated from each other. Doomed to wander the lands alone, as lonesome prey, or at least the ones who survived that is..”..

She has overrun her brain with calculations, what if she did this? What if she did that? What if she had not been born with a horn upon her dome?
What if? Shes terrified of the prospect of him, because she is a curse. She is a curse, and she wants to scream at him, to tell him to run far, far away from her,
and never return. Run, didn't he see? She was the demon, she was the plague.
..“How about you, my dove? How do you find yourself here? What twist of luck brought you to me?”..

Twist of luck.
A bitter chuckle escapes her maw. Her breath is a tremor in her lungs.
If he only knew.