i am a leaf on the wind

She always comes back here. Not always stopping, but flying by more times than she can count, comfort radiating from the trees to her place in the sky. Sometimes she stops, dipping through a break in the branches to wander on the ground, feet steady and sure on the rough, rooted earth. Once, this place was strange and unknown to her, but quickly, it is becoming a second home. Or perhaps, it is simply becoming home.
 
Home in a way the Edge is not. She knows the forest there well, but she still feels like a stranger in her own land. Like a beggar on the door of someone’s home. They were all kind and the herd quite tightknit. Very much a family. And of course, therein was the problem. They were kind enough to welcome her in, but no one seemed to know just where it was she did fit. Herself included. She cannot blame them, but rather herself.
 
Instead of trying, she often takes to the sky. It is home in the clouds with the wind beneath her wings, the weather finally turning warming, making flight all the more inviting. She often heads to the Threshold, a place where she can at least serve a purpose. But sometimes she simply soars over Helovia, skirting close to the Throat and wondering what life would have been like if she chose that path. Flying low over the trees of the Deep Forest, teal eyes looking for a familiar face. Either his, or his cat’s.
 
She has yet to see either of them. Perhaps because he has not come back since, or perhaps because they simply come at different times. Perhaps he is avoiding her, perhaps seeking her in his own spare time. Perhaps none of these things, and he never thinks on her at all. Not that she dwells on him, but rather, that he is a memory in which she felt she might actually find a life in Helovia. A life after Morham. But he is quickly becoming nothing but that memory.
 
She lands on the edge of the forest today, moving through the trees toward the pool where he’d taken her. His gift, a bright red ruby, glimmers in the few rays of sunshine through the leaves from it’s place against her chest, held there by a delicate gold chain. She feels a little more like her old self with another piece of jewelry on, a little bit more like the girl that used to be decked in precious metals and stones.
 
Now, her jewelry was simply a collection of memories. An earring the only thing she could not loose from herself before she’d fled her home. A necklace that still gave her some hope for a new life. Was this what she’s destined to become? A collection of jewelry tied to memories of a life that was never lived?
 
No.
 
But then again, she does not know how to change it. So instead, she makes her way to the pool, ghosts of memories flickering around her. Memories that belong here, and memories that do not. And for once, she lets herself fall into them. 

watch how i soar.

lyanna