Cera
_{I'm an angel with a shotgun, fighting till the war's won, and I don't care if heaven won't take me back}

It is a joyous morning. 

He awakens slowly, limbs happily tired from using his magic, the sun warm against his face and inviting as he opens his eyes. The sun is already climbing the sky, brilliant and hot against his skin as he stretched out his joints and rustles his wings. Ilaria is peering lazily down at him from her branch, fluffy tail floating in the few errant breezes that curl over the sands. Do we have any plans for today? he asks her as he lifts his wings to embrace the hot wind that buffets against him. No, she responds softly where she's sunning herself. Cera's smile is slow but sure as it crawls across his face, a half-formed plan budding in his mind. She huffs fondly at him, so full of love that it nearly hurts. Go, she says, and he obeys.

He lunges out across the sand, if only to feel the way the earth disappears beneath his hooves, the way the wind tugs and plays with his pale tresses. And his wings come up to his sides, embracing the currents, and he leaps into the air without a second of hesitation. He falls into the nothingness with total faith, swings higher as he pushes his body harder and farther, streaking up and up and up as if reaching for the sun itself. Glides high above, where the canyons and dunes stretch out before him, sapphire lapping at the edges and nothing can touch him. He can breathe, up here, nothing but cold wind and errant clouds to dive through to wet his feathers. Where he's nothing but a body, a spirit of the wind.

So he dives, remembering hurricanes and breakneck speeds, he and Fina racing to some unknown destination when life was simpler and Midas was always there to catch him when he fell. Lets the world spiral into a blur of blue and beige, closes his eyes against it, grinning so wide it hurts. Falls face first, tucked tight and streamlined, wings tight. Breaks out of it like an archangel rising from the ashes, a falcon across the sea, skimming sand dunes with his hooves instead of water. His heart races in his chest, pounding for freedom, and he follows the call to the clay lined shores. Kicks at the water as he flies, a pure and evanescent being, burning bright until his tinder is consumed. Laughs so loud and long his chest hurts, the wind ripping it free of his mouth and swallowing it up. 

Forgets every responsibility, every nightmare that lingers on the shores, and tries to remember what it was like to be a child again.