Själ

The girl paused to gaze fondly up the path to the plateau of the Heavenly Fields.  Ansgar perched easily on her rump, looking about with piercing golden eyes.  The griffin did not remember having been here before, and she sifted patiently through the memories rolling through her bonded's mind for answers.  The images came quickly, as did the surprisingly pleasant emotions associated with them:  a sunny day, a brilliant smile, a piercing blue - and suddenly the griffin did remember, if only vaguely.  This was the place that the princess had made her two dearest friends:  Zèklè, her Zèklè, her self-proclaimed 'badass' of a friend; and Ansgar, her companion, inseparable and familiar.

But it was not the griffin that the girl thought of just now with longing; she did not recognize the emotion, did not understand what it was to miss someone, particularly someone with whom she had spent so little time.  But there had been a connection, hadn't there?  Or had she merely imagined it, desperate as she had been for companionship?

Ansgar curled into a ball atop the unicorn's hindquarters, jealousy tainting the faint, warm joy of her bonded.  It was unfair, she knew, to be so envious of some colt from a faraway land when she had spent every waking moment of her short life with the princess; but it was suddenly a battle, a competition for the girl's adoration.  Ansgar was many things, but willing to share was not one of them - and it didn't matter before, for she had never been asked to give her time with the girl up for anyone else.  But now, even without the boy's presence, she was being shoved aside, ignored, and for what?

The griffin soothed herself by noting that it was she, and not the boy-child, who had been by the unicorn's side for months; not to mention, he was nowhere to be found.  The girl would snap out of her reverie in a few moments and go on her merry way, and then things would be right back to normal.  She had nothing to worry about.

Of course, it was true that the griffin ought not worry, for Ansgar held the closest place to the filly's heart; but it was difficult, nonetheless, to go so long without seeing even a vague hint of one's own kind, and harder still to return to Helovia without the slightest idea of where to look for the one creature who might welcome her.  Själ sent calming thoughts to the griffin, teasing her gently for her jealousy, and soon the negativity waned and the winged beast's happier nature won out; she stretched and leaped to the ground, where she began to bat playfully at Själ's tail, winning herself a smile.

But still, the girl wondered:  where was her badass?

"Speak."
--Ansgar.--