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They perched, huddled together for warmth, a united front against the bitter chill of Frostfall’s wretched wind as it howled mournfully through the Threshold’s groaning forest. The previous night’s snow lay like thick carpet across the floor below; the tough, wiry grass able to draw nutrients clear from the ravenous grasp of redwoods and their few oak bed-mates, had yellowed without sunlight, and grown sour. Birds and their mammal neighbours still sheltered in dens and hollows, safe from the threat of winter’s fierce blizzards, and bleak days fell short of their gloriously warm Tallsun span. Africa and Silas had stayed over the course of the night, unwilling to drive south while the cruel weather blinded their path and burnt their lungs- even now, while the sun strained in weak bursts to break through the weight of the cloud cover, they had been reluctant to submit to the cold.

The day wore on around them regardless, and once Silas parted from Africa to raid the skirt of the meadowland to the south where thistle shells still clutched tightly their helpless progeny. He was swifter than a parrot- born from the elusive Zephyrs who circled the globe endlessly, and seldom tired like the shape-shifted form of his beloved. The seeds offered the grumble of their writhing stomaches little satisfaction, but each knew the benefit, the energy to be drawn from the smallest of meals.

Tenderly, Africa preened the long, elaborate crest feather’s of her bonded, purring all the while with bright, beige eyes transfixed by the shimmering starlight illuminating the feathers down his sable back. He was far lovelier than she; whichever form she took, and always she wondered why he had come to tend her rotting mind and broken body that winter in the Basin. Never had she guessed him to be a product of that Basilisk egg.

There was a flicker of movement below, a small horse figure gifted with wings of sleek ebony, and both the parrot and the Zephyr’s sharp eyes swivelled to view her. At first glimpse she appeared swan-white, fittingly graceful though she stumbled to a halt just beyond the girth of their tree. Africa watched carefully, the caress of her round eyes less tender as pupils pinned with expanding interest- undetected, insignificant, like many assumed wildlife to be. Her heart did tremble though, wrought with empathy and concern, and it skipped apprehensively as the stranger collapsed to sleep; the soft wash of rose through her coat more evident as she lay sprawled through snow. The Grey stretched one side of her restless body backwards, and then the other; bright crimson tail waggling through a final puff of mottled grey feathers. Curiously she left the side of her companion, climbing artfully between branches in descent, until she was swaying upon the flimsy tip of her host’s lowest limb.

The mare woke suddenly at that point, and Africa startled, bouncing back along the branch with open wings and dancing claws until it thickened enough to support her properly. Turning her face cautiously, one cream eye returned to find the stranger lifting from her slush bed; walking, and pausing right beneath the tree. The parrot reached with a powerful beak more and peeled away rough bark from her perch, dropping it down upon the idle mare. Again, with pinning eyes still trained to the Pegasus, Africa stripped another slither from the branch and after rolling it across her dry, round tongue twice, threw it down.

Silas watched on bemused from above, hunched and wrapped snugly beneath his thick cloak of feathers.

Africa