I guess there was a modicum of “getting my shit together” when you consider how often I didn’t come back here anymore. This used to be my base of non-operation, but other than that weird time with the red lightning (which I HAD to be there for, c’mon) I hadn’t even thought about coming back here.

Why was I here now? Because I had thangs on my mind, the kind of thangs that made my hooves move and my mind whirl with the slightest crack of a headache, even if they weren’t strong enough to give me nightmares anymore. I guess that was a part of growing up--things stopped being scary and just became tedious instead. I wasn’t scared of Kisamoa and every unknown he represented--he was just a thing I had to deal with. All the shit with Kis (the tall brown one) wasn’t something I wanted to shy away from; it was just a baggage of shit that I had to sit down and sort through one day. The whole shebang with the warriors of the Edge, and what was gonna happen with them, and me--it was just a thing that needed to be handled, and here I was, pacing a familiar place with unfamiliar snow, trying to work my teeth around a dilemma.

Snow, snow everywhere. The world was being cocooned in it.

Chico soared in the crisp white sky, his heavy wings beating through the thin winter air. I told him spring was the time I was gonna finally learn to fly and fulfil a promise I’d made sometime ago. And he waited like a champ, but that didn’t stop him from trying to give me a taste. Like...he liked flying, but now he was just rubbing that shit in, y’know; doing all kinds of corkscrews and loop-de-loops, showcasing just how how agile his huge lion’s body could be despite his muscle. How he was sexy on the wing as much as he was on the ground. I mean...good grief, I mostly ignored it and continued to chew on my shit, even as Chico kept showing off for my benefit--or maybe it was his benefit cuz, well, flying was fun. 

I did notice when he suddenly dropped from the sky. I cocked an ear, curious, wondering what had caught his eye; he had dove for the ground for a black shape he found familiar only through my memories, because the last time he met her he had gotten pulled in a scrap and that’s not the best time to make first impressions or remember someone’s face. He wasn’t nervous though; with a few heavy flaps of his wings, he alighted on the snow not too far away from her, looking at her with these large amber eyes and a panting toothy grin that surged with energy.

He didn’t show me who he had found. “Chico, what…?” I called out, because he clearly wanted me to come and see for myself. And I trotted for where he told me to go, and I did see who it was, and I lost it just as he predicted I might.

“JIJI?!” I bellowed, before I could get a grasp on myself; I leapt through the space between us, intending to barrel into her because holy fuck, there were a lot of feelings that were gonna surge up but the most powerful was nothing but a violent sunlit burst of

Jiji.


"talk"