Tears threatened to spill from behind the eyelids that held them back like a beaver's dam did water. But I didn't let them fall. No. I couldn't have anybody come across me and think that I was a blubbering idiot. Of course, it didn't really help that I didn't know where I was. This terrain was foreign to me and although I knew of and experience a few winters already, this cold was a startling one. Seconds turned into minutes and with each breath I exhaled a cloud of crystallized vapor hung in the air before me. It was almost as if it was asking...no, pleading to return to whence it came rather than suffer the glacial air and dissipate to the great unknown. Yes, this winter here was different than any I had experienced before and it only made me wonder what the natives were like. Were they nice? Were they mean? Were they small or were they giant? Or even were there any natives that lived here? I really had no knowledge, no idea what the inhabitants of this place were like if there were any and realizing this started to put me a little on edge.

My ears flicked to and fro trying to catch every sound that surrounded me. Paranoia began to bloom from its seed that was buried deep within my chest and with each passing second its grip grew stronger upon my mind. A sound of a twig snapping in one direction. The sound of snow crunching in another. A rustle of the bare tree branches opposite of the other two. I was surrounded by a cacophony of silence.

Then my ears suddenly slammed behind me at an incessant growing number of what I would guess to be footsteps in the snow. Is something the matter? You look upset, the voice behind me uttered in my direction and I spun as quick as I could to face its originator.

To my surprise, before me stood a stallion taller than myself and coal black in color with some white and gold thrown in. But that wasn't what caught me off guard. It was his wings. A pegasus? Illomere didn't have any of the sort, but when I was in Cimoron there was. Though I had never had the pleasure of meeting one as they were a bit of an elusive bunch.

“Who are you?!” I blurted out as I begin to worry a little. And why wouldn't I? I didn't know this stallion. I didn't know this place. And I sure as hell didn't completely know of this stallion's intentions despite his few but kind words of concern. Then the stallion began to move a closer to me and my muscles tensed and called out to him loud enough just for him to hear, “Don't come any closer!”

Fearful that this stallion just might be full of some sort of evil I looked to the line of trees that surrounded us and planned a possible escape route should anything go wrong. My orange eyes caught sight of a few pine trees while I was searching and I tried to remember what training I had had in Cimoron. Pine needles...was it help for illnesses or were they able to be used as a poison of sorts? When I couldn't recall its use I cursed under my breath and fell to the idea of just using a branch of needles as a way to fend off an attacker. Again that was if it came down to that.



It wasn't long until the stallion introduced himself. Bucephalus and he said that he was from a herd farther south. I felt like I winced slightly at his introduction as I had realized that my paranoia had run rampant. Hopefully Buce...Bucepah...Bucephel. A sigh escaped my lungs as I struggled over the pronunciation of his name within the confines of my mind. Hopefully he would understand my nervousness. Then my attention turned to the question he had unknowingly quipped to me. Did I honestly look like I was from one of the herds here? No, I think not.

Before I could answer Bucephalus -hey I finally got it right!- another being entered into the grove and this time it was a female. Shockingly this female also bore wings. Was this place inhabited by pegasi only? My ears tipped in the mare's direction as she spoke before I could even manage a reply to Bucephalus. She said hello with smile plastered upon her lips and then continued with her name and then moved on to reassuring me that there was no need to be frightened. She also happened to throw in a bit of a tour guide offer which honestly, I could use. Her words though helped a little but I was still wary of the both of them. I glanced back to the treeline and wondered for a second how well a pegasus could fly in this forest. Perhaps I would be able to outrun them?

No.

I figuratively shook the thought from my head, releasing its hold upon my nerves and looked from the Bucephalus to Rhea before speaking my own words for them to hear as I took a step back away from them both, “You'll have to excuse me,” I noticed that Rhea had extended out her muzzle to me as I stepped back and felt slightly guilty that I was being so cautious about them, but I had to be, “But where I previously lived, it was rather difficult to take one's words for truth and you always had to fear the evil minded.”

Once more I looked to the two of them and sighed once more. Why did trust have to be so hard to give and get on Cimoron? It was almost like I was now conditioned to be a nervous Nelly and I didn't particularly like that part of me. “So we can be on a name to name basis, my name is Ayleid,” I began a little more calmly, “Now, where exactly am I? I don't recognize any of this terrain.” I might as well start off this way. One question at a time. To start off, where was this place. Then, why do I look different. And finally did either of them know where my homeland, Illomere, was. After all, it was my end goal, but first I needed to look like myself again and for some reason I felt like that bit was going to take some unwanted time.

"Ayleid's speech"|"Ayleid's thoughts"

WORD COUNT;; 1089
TAGGED;; @[Bucephalus] , @[Rhea]
OOC;; holy moley. this turned out sooo long.

AYLEID'S REF;; Click!
AYLEID'S VOICE;; Miranda Otto