Strangers on the beach. You watch them from afar, exploration of the dunes interrupted by their stark outlines: dark now against the sand, still against the wanton movement of the tide. Up on the sand, you're dark as well: a bit of the night sky divorced from its heavenly body, lost to dwell upon the earth and to diminish, and — well. You're getting a bit morbid, aren't you? Old enough to know the world is big, old enough to know loss and love, you hang somewhere between too weak to act on your impulses and too old to let them go. Your chest aches with a nameless wanting, a thing with teeth, a thing stirring at the sight of them down near the waves.

You don't know them. Your eyes crawl along the edges of their wings with silent hunger. Your own wings, still tufted here and there with baby fluff, flex against your shoulders. And you're already walking, already picking your way toward the surf and the strangers. One of them is small, like you. You haven't much luck in befriending other foals, but —

Well, the folly of youth still begs you try.

Unfortunately, the folly of youth doesn't give you instructions. You wander down toward the water as if it calls you, and not the strangers, but one black eye watches the mare first (more dangerous) and the boy second (more interesting) with an almost frightening intensity. Oh, what would you say, if you could say anything? Searching your head comes up with nothing. If you turn to look at the gulls instead, or the horizon, you feel vulnerable. So you turn toward the boy, your delicate face tilted and your swan's neck arched, and everything about you strange and angular and that weird lanky-sharp of adolescence. To your eye, the strangers are beautiful. The light springing around the boy's wings makes your own flex again, lonely in their darkness, and oh, what you would give for a moment to be them.

You aren't.

Sheer force of will opens your mouth. Your eyes are on the wavelets and the boy's legs when you speak at last, the words grinding out past a thick and clumsy tongue. "I'm Virga." That's good, right? That's how you say hello? Your tail flicks from one hip to the other, a vague admission of discomfort as sea foam cups your ankles and you feel, at once, too small and too old.

VIRGA