What she should do is head to the Throat, take up the mantle of the sun in all it's majesty; but she cannot. How can she face her parents when time and time again, she has so gleefully abandoned them to their fates in dust and ash? Perhaps it was not exactly like that... in her absence from Helovia, she had not wasted idle time. No! She had met Hrathnør, shining blade of the mountain men; watched him battle arrogant champions, break foes beneath his hooves, sweep away soldiers with a single thundrous clap of his wings. And even better, she had been taught by him, sculpted into a spearhead, a dagger blade, a shield; maiden of war, combat lass with voltaic eyes.

And yet she had been drawn back into the contemptuous mountains of the land of her birth, the place where the sun glittered brightly and the presence of the gods were undeniably true.

Nostrils quiver as she exhales, wings stretching wide -- feathers shuddering ever-so-slightly as the wind picks up, it's incessent moans a symphony of dismal tunes. Eyes squint, dark lashes fanning together against the bright eye of the sun; ears flicker back to her tangled mane, a momentary expression of her growing uncerrtainty. Here, far above the lands, it would be deliciously easy to soar around a wing-tip and head towards the mountains far beyond the border of Helovian -- to go back to the place she had called home for over a year. Back to Hrathnør; back to the Queen; back to friends and loyal allies, forged in the flames of war... but she could not. Promises had been made, even as oaths were forsaken. Vows -- vows to return! To serve and to protect, as was her sacred duty, to take up the ways of the Sun Lord and his figurehead in mortal flesh (her mighty father, warlord!)

Once, twice, mighty wings beat, bringing her ever higher. Down she looks upon the peaks of the mountains, wraiths veiled in thick mist and of perplexing nature.

Long is her exhale, her sweetly harmonious sigh.

And down, down she goes. Wings angle, primaries flush, and she begins to circle idly, allowing the freedom of the wind to chase away her worries and petty woes. The sky is painfully bright today, the breeze a joyous thing tugging at her mane and tail; how she would love to remain dancing in this blue yonder! It would not be so. She is bound by a mortal flesh, and no matter where her spirit might roam, her wings did stiffen and tire after arduous hours of flight through headwinds and tailwinds both. The trees, outlined in verdant brightness, sharpen in her sapphire retinas, each detail becoming more precise; and then she's past the trees, into the mighty meadows blushing green in the spring sun. Appendages cup (the wind caressing each delicate bone and anatomical flaw) and muscles work, pumping back. Hind hooves alight first, heavily, and then forward she tips onto her forelegs.

A faintly bemused smile wrinkles her ashen muzzle.
Once she had struggled with landings; and if not for the teachings she had experienced (and they had been brutal in their rigorous ways) perhaps she would still be that clumsy girl.

Zenobia

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