The wind flows beneath my wings, wholesome as the moon’s pale glow that cascades across my slate hide. I find that it is better now, to carry my body through the slips of air, since I was bound to the earth for so long, healing after the aftermath of a tree. Perhaps it is more sacred, to be so close to the touch of the Moon and so in tune with the strength of my winged blood, after having lost the ability to chase the Moon’s steady stride across the sky. Perhaps it is simply that I have missed the freedom, the sheer expedience and grace that lies upon the bending breeze.

I feel whole here, the steady rhythm of my wings in time with the beating of my heart. Here is where I am strong, untroubled, free. There are no chains that can hold me to the earth while I am tenderly laying my cheek against the Moon’s loving bosom. Here, there are no faces of dead lovers and sons born for a life empty of any joy, there are no strange masks or bodies with which I must abide.

I can even feel beautiful, a whole creature truly fit for the comfort of heavenly arms even while marked as visibly by the vile filth of my homeland as I am.

Elysia, the name is a black bell that sounds sweetly until it’s reverberations will not leave your mind be. Many nights I have listened to its song, unbroken and haunting the cry of my veins that beg with me to crawl back into it’s hideous embrace. Only my dreams and songs of my sisters had carried me through those dark evenings, a never ending stream of nightmares brewed behind each closed eye – never ending, that is, until the dream that has carried me here.

I chose to fly again that night, though the muscles were still weak from disuse and the cold winds of higher altitudes made the bones ache; the turning seasons have brought the pain to me even lower than the summer heat had allowed me to fly, the burning forest beneath me announcing the arrival of fall even without the cold’s gentle kiss.

One day, I will come back and burn that tree. I will burn it while my mother’s head bakes for the ravens upon its highest bough. Perhaps the Pain Bringer, too, shall have the gracious fate of being allowed to witness her death singing the flesh from her body, licking her mane away in zealous gulps, her queen’s crown dripping fat into her pleading eyes.

But these aspirations of vengeance can wait; perhaps they will even become ashes scattered by fairer wind.

I must find my sisters.

I must find the thistle field.

I spot the dream’s origin place, a clearing twenty feet by forty, oval for the most part with a few odd jabs into its perfection by weather wearied shrubbery. At it’s center, a fine conifer rises its egotistical crown into the heavens; my body nimbly maneuvers in tight circles down it’s length, wings held tightly upwards to allow for them to remain unscathed in such close proximity to the stinging boughs of the tree. I have healed well – though the muscles still groan when put under such intense acrobatic pressure, the year between the break and my first day back in the skies had done much to recover their resilience.

In time, I would be almost as new. I am strong. I have to be for my family, the daughters of the storm.

Landing gracefully, my forelimbs embrace my weight as my cloven hooves touch down onto the earth, and like a finely staged dance the brittle leaves upon the floor of the forest rise in a cloud of dusty upheaval at their impact. Lion's tail strikes around my body, a half halo of gleaming, pale blue hair that ripples and waves as a river, and I gaze proudly upon the kingdom before me, waiting for the traveler who will carry me to my beloved kin.