You mistake her for something else, at first.

When you realize it's a winged horse (like you) up in the sky, you forget what you thought she was before (god? angel? dream-figment?). She is only fast — she is only powerful. She's a silhouette against the smear of color in the sky, black where the sun melts into the sea, where day bleeds slowly into night. And she's fast; and you've never seen anyone aloft before, but the sight of her ignites something in your chest and suddenly your heart hums, faster, faster and atop the dunes you freeze, your body held prisoner by the depth of wonder hurtling through it.

For some interminable amount of time, you forget your body. You forget everything save the sound of air around her wings. The ache in your chest rises to crescendo; your own wings unfurl by half and your tail rises in silent exclamation over your back. And she's falling! She's falling! But she's not! You watch her hurtle recklessly from sea to sand, and you want to be that, to feel that, to have the wind at your mercy and the ground crying to have you back. You move before you know you're moving, before you remember even that you have your own hooves, and sand kicks up behind you as you pound down the beach toward her. Half grown and fuzzy again with your winter coat coming in, you're a strange sight in the stark shadow and brilliance of twilight: a bit of night sky, animate. A thing shaped like a child but much too intense around the eyes.

Snorting, you pull up before you run the stranger over, and your wings furl and fan as you approach more carefully, your eyes drinking her in, exulting at this miracle of someone else like you, like you and Vesper and your father, even though no sword crowns the stranger's head and not a trace of night graces her skin. She's close enough. You circle around toward her head and stare, your neck outstretched, tail twitching. You want to ask her every question in the world and yet nothing comes out, nothing, nothing. You stare.

Something seems wrong with her, up close. You're not sure what; the wrongness prickles slowly, stubbornly at your churning brain. And you speak too late, your tail twitching, your voice low and intense, just as fervent as the rest of you. "You fly." You want her attention more than anything, though warned now by that alarm-thing in your brain, you step back, failing to realize the alarm is because she looks distressed, in the first place, and not because she might be dangerous. Your head tilts; your body keeps moving, moving, and you're alive with wanting, the strange desire to reach out for her and pull for yourself whatever she knows.

VIRGA