i lit a flame in my heart to guide you home

This was well overdue by now, but perhaps it was better that Alysanne had not rushed out to the Falls to visit the Czarina there after the battle with Tembovu had ended. As much as she had wanted to clear the air she knew she needed time to clear her own head, to think about everything that happened in a mindset that wasn’t clouded by the insults thrown at her over those two days.

Her chest ached from the stab wound Tembovu had made there, pulling and stretching with each movement, but it was tolerable and so far it seemed to be healing nicely. She had chosen to walk to the Falls instead of fly - partly because she welcomed the journey but mostly because she wasn’t entirely sure she’d be able to recognize the herdland from the sky since it had been years since she had visited there.

Not since she had entered with the Edge and Basin, not since the invasion.

Now that they had arrived, for Hemlock flew around her nervously, Alysanne wasn’t entirely sure what to do next. She had been lead to one of the pathways that allowed entry into the herdland once and she honestly had no idea where it was. But even if she did know, entering without permission was incredibly rude and she was determined to make as good of an impression as she could - she couldn’t let her passion and anger get the better of her this time.

‘I could go in.’ Hemlock’s deep voice interrupted her thoughts as he came to land between her ears.

She frowned, eyeing the escarpment that lay before them. “Won’t they take offense to that too? The companion of an outsider just flying around their herdland?” The Falls wasn’t exactly made to be welcoming to visitors, but then she didn’t think any of the herds were. The Throat was an island, the Edge with their ridiculous new glass spikes, and the Falls and Basin both had their natural defenses. Alysanne wouldn’t mind if a companion came to seek her out and led her back to someone waiting on the Edge borders, but she wasn’t about to assume she and Isopia thought the same way.

But they did need to talk. And Alysanne knew it was either risk offending someone with Hemlock’s presence or camp out here until Kahlua’s daughter happened to walk by, which wasn’t exactly how she wanted to spend the next few days. So with a sigh, she bid him to fly into the Falls and seek out Isopia - praying all the while that her small brown companion would go unnoticed and that his presence wouldn’t be the spark that caused another fire. There was always the chance that the hybrid mare wasn’t even home in which case they’d have to think of a new plan.

The day was fresh and new still, dew clinging to the grass where Alysanne stood and waited - soft morning sunshine filtering through the clouds and painting a pretty picture for what would hopefully be a more successful conversation than their last.