Gull

Dark clouds hang heavy over the wood, and from somewhere within, crows’ caws ring out like an ominous warning. Weary head hangs low as you approach the treeline, only lifting every now and then to survey your surroundings. Though the trees grow thick here, a preliminary scouring of the forest would be much easier by air. However, you’re in no condition for flight. A rasping cough claws its way out of your throat, and blue eyes blink in misery. It appears that Muriel’s murder has taken its toll on you these past few weeks, both emotionally and physically. Once a strong specimen of a stallion in his prime, you have withered rapidly, coughing and wheezing, unable to catch your breath to the point where flight has become an impossibility. Large wings lie uselessly on your back, muscles stiff from disuse: you are a shell of your former self.

Perhaps you should be worried, given that you’d seen it all before. To be too weak for flight was to be too weak to live, but you swore to yourself that you wouldn’t die with the pink mare’s murder still unsolved and her killer roaming these lands. Grief was a funny thing: it dulled even your most primitive instinct of self-preservation, but daily fueled the fires of vengeance. All your remaining energy was poured into one task, and one task alone. You are obsessed, a man on a mission.

Now, you pause as you enter the forest, drawing your head up with painful effort. Ragged breath catches in your throat, and your sides heave even from the simple act, unable to get your breath. You curse under your breath, but even that has now been taken from you it seems. Your voice comes out in a hoarse whisper, and the act of speaking feels like swallowing and regurgitating a swarm of angry bees. Frustrated, you strike out with a hind leg, landing what would have been a solid kick on a dead branch. But in your weakened state, the branch only shudders and you pay the price instead, stumbling forward with the ghost of a scream that only sets your throat on fire anew. Your breaths are shallow and rapid as you steady yourself, doing your best not to lose your mind completely, if only for the sake of your body. Why you?

OOC: Questing, part III!
This was originally set way back in Frostfall, but if your timeline's tricky, I don't care if it plays with his a bit c;

trouble just grew wings