From Helovia she fled in a halo of angst and despair, frightened from the shadows like a scurrying rat from the jowls of a slavering dog. It had been a whirlwind of terror and dark, dark fear, the kind of which besmirched the soul and tainted the purest of hearts; a primitive dread which drove mother and father, all of which she held dear, from her mind as she ran. Perhaps it had been black magic, or nefarious sorcery, or the will of the gods; or maybe, it had been a mundane thing, a mere glow of the eyes in the dark that frightened her so. Whatever it had been, she did not know; but she dared not tempt it, for she quaked at the very thought of it's gaze turning back to her. Evil! What an ungodly thing it was, like the blood of children pooling out on the floor and the coiled viper curled, hidden, in the cowboy's boot. And she, the shining sword against the darkness — well, she should've been — had been swallowed by the shadows and devoured in full, fragile bones snapping beneath the pressure.

It shamed her, the weakness of her ill-fated heart, but that great twilight was in the past. When she escaped it's embrace, it's crushing love — henceforth disappearing into the wilds outside of Helovia — she had grown in ways she never would've suspected. Suddenly, her alabaster wings and voltaic eyes and warm smile did not seem so judiciously out-of-place, so unwarranted upon a child's face; without the pressure of her parents' legendary titles upon her, Zenobia bloomed, flourished into what she was meant to be all along: Zenobia.

Only a few weeks ago she had taken the plunge, forcing herself once again into the relative chaos of her old homeland, heart fluttering (a caged bird) inside her chest; mouth sour with dread, she cut through the Threshold, a virgin arrow singing straight to the Throat... only to be distracted. For there, grown among the great behemoth column of downy clouds and blue skies, was a chunk of earth sewn into the ether, glorious representation of the marvelous unknown; and how could she, exemplary bright-eyed youth, be able to resist the temptation of exploring? Not at all, of course; and so with a twitch of her primaries and a gentle lean to her right, the juvenile began to make her way to the corporeal thing that lurked among the incandescent water droplets. Mama and papa would have to wait awhile longer — though they had waited so long already, a small and doubtful little part of her wondered if they thought her gone and dead.

Except the fates had dictated today she would soon be seeing her dearest distant father.

At first, she did not see him; it was a prickling along her spine, the faint stirring of unease within the cavity of her chest that warned her to the imminent presence of her sire. It was not unlike dread, or fear, this peculiar sensation; but she, Amazonian, crushed such feelings with a pompous rage and thus eradicated any vestiges of terror. She would no longer be a vassal to her nerves — that she had learned on her trip away from mama and papa, and she was determined to keep those lessons in mind. Secondly, it was the scent; a rich aroma, like warm fire and crackling desert heat, totally indescribable and yet familiar, that drew her, allowed her to hone in on her dad; and then it was his strong and stern silhouette, all hard angles and sharp points.

Gaucho.
Papa.

Cradled by the wind, she drifts towards him, warrior daughter with wings cupped, nostrils quivering wide as she tries to decipher reality from the foolish cravings of a tawdry mind.

And then, as she approaches, she calls out, voice startlingly snappy like the crack of a whip, almost accusatory: "Father!"