i am a leaf on the wind

She comes to the forest only because it feels something like home. This forest is nothing like the one she knows, really. It is dark and deep; gashes striping across the pines, evidence of scuffles and worse in the cracked branches and tamped down earth beneath her feet. Possibly, she should be afraid. And to some extent, she is. But not in the way she should be.
 
She still doesn’t feel very at home in Helovia. She’s trying. Really, truly trying. But finding a place to live hasn’t proved to be the easiest task (not that she’d been turned away yet, but she hadn’t been fully embraced either). She shouldn’t expect to be welcomed in with open arms though. A stranger with nothing to offer yet, that’s all she is. Why would anyone clamber to call her a member of their herd?
 
So she does what she is best at, and takes to the sky. Trying to at least learn the areas in Helovia. Trying to make herself feel less lost, less out of place. If she can start to learn something about this place, perhaps she can start to prove her worth.
 
That is how she ends up in the Deep Forest. It is nothing like home, not really. Her forest was bright and area, more a mix of trees and clearings than this place. The sun only filters through in small beams here and there. In that light, she can see glimpses of beauty, of what a forest can be. But mostly, it is shadowed and quiet and eerie here.
 
But she’s not particularly afraid of what might find her. She’s only afraid that this place, that Helovia, won’t turn out to be a forever home. And she’s tired of running. So she keeps wandering through the forest instead, taking it in, even the gashes in the trees. She’ll learn what she can; she’ll try to fit in. And if she tries hard enough, perhaps it will pay off. Besides, the deep forest is a curious place. She can’t help but wonder what stories it holds, can’t help but miss being able to ask the wind to tell her stories.
 
Once, the wild was alive to her. It came to her when she asked, lifted her higher in the sky than her wings alone could ever carry her. But here, it is just the wind. And she misses its whisper almost as she misses her brother, her parents. And her sister, who hadn’t been seen in Helovia since they went separate ways in the Threshold. But she tries not to think about that. It’s easier to wonder what’s happened in this forest, easier to wonder about Helovia, than it is to dwell on her own past.

watch how i soar.

lyanna