It was strange, how a place so familiar, could hold so many new, unusual, things. Things I couldn't have imagined up unless I had seen them first, things that were so foreign to me, I wondered that I hadn't found them before. It was a wondrous thing, this creation that surely could have only been brought into existence by magic, or godly intervention.

Ha. The Gods.

I did wonder just how 'present' they were now. If they were so great and powerful, why did their powers not stretch beyond the borders of Helovia? How did they claim to be all-powerful and all-knowing, when they let places like Isilme burn and suffer under the broken and inadequate rule of those fools called Nieque, Sepagus and Cinnoru? At least, that was what father told me. They led a world that crumbled beneath their unbalanced powers.

Would Helovia crumble one day too?
Hadn't it already?

Yet even as I mocked them, I felt their presence. Not even I could deny their touch. They had blessed me the day my father fell. Wind flowed through my veins, ever since that zephyr came and whisked my sire's bodice away into oblivion.

I still remember the song you sang that day.

It was what had drawn the others to him, to us. It was what signalled his passing into whatever existed beyond the end of life. I still hear that song, though it is faded, since you are no longer within my soul to sing it.

Oh Sitka. I miss you.

The wooden shaft of his - well, I suppose now it's my - spear bends ever so slightly between my teeth. Father said it was the spear of his father, and probably his father before him. It's sharpened, silver point glints in the fading sunlight. Dusk settles itself across the horizon, its hues setting off a splendorous display across my hide. I seem to glow, as the clouds above me set off a dazzling display of oranges, pinks, purples and deep, crimsons.

The point of the spear directs itself towards the entrance to this pavilion, at least, that's the only word I can think of for this alien structure. My wings stand off from my sides slightly, ready to burst open and lift myself to the air in a moments notice. My eyes, bright and clear cerulean, gleam a vivid indigo as the glass refracts the setting sun's rays into them. I place a single hoof into the structure, my hide shivering as the drapes flutter from the wind that naturally follows me around. This is as far as I go, as I am not terribly keen on backing myself into what, for want of a better descriptor, resembles a giant cage.

And everyone knows that birds do not belong in cages.

[[ For @[Déodat] and anyone else who would like to join ^^ ]]