so i listen to the    wind for an answer

She’s beginning to understand that home is where her friends are and nothing more. The Edge feels wrong, hollow and empty without the Moon Goddess watching over them, but it is still home. Her friends are here, trying to collect their belongings and their loved ones and though she is largely alone as they all go about their business, it doesn’t hurt as she might expect. It only took the end of the world for her to begin to feel okay again, their very existence threatened by a war started and ended by Gods. Their opinion would not matter, their fight would not matter. In the end, they were pawns, but she didn’t care. She only cared that they all made it out alive.  

Ru’s returned touch is familiar and comforting as they stand there at the World’s Edge, the end of their world looming above them. The quiet hangs in the air, more than just the wind whipping away the usual sounds of the Edge. She doesn’t feel alone though, not now, not with Ru here, not with an entire herd to protect. Not that she has much to offer then in way of protection, but she would try. She would be there when Kaos called them, she would be there no matter what happened.

Ru nods off the cliff a few times, chirping, and Lyanna grins slightly. Now is not the time for play, maybe, but perhaps it’s the perfect time. There may not be another chance for fun. There may never be a cliff in their lives again. Then Ru unfurls her wings and plunges off the cliff. Lyanna’s breath catches in her throat, fear that the girl might not save herself suddenly coursing through her veins. It would be easier to just give up, to end here where they all finally found a second chance. Life is not easy though, and the things that are easy are rarely worth much.

After a moment, Ru comes soaring up and Lyanna lets out a breath before running off the cliff, unfurling her wings and letting the wind pick her up. She feels alive, calling out to her friend with a nicker, loud and joyous despite everything. They had never played like this that she could recall, and it feels good to shed the heaviness of everything, even if only for a moment. There’s a familiar tingle too in her bones, something that always comes with the wind, something that is akin to when she long ago controlled the air around her.

She tunes into the feeling again, suddenly aware that it is more than a memory, more than a ghost wind. The feeling is not the same as it once was, but still…it’s there. Call the wind, her ghost says. Her brother’s voice, the one that will not leave her no matter how much time has passed. It feels foolish, but she reaching for the familiar strand of magic as she soars behind her friend, leaving the Edge behind. They could keep going. They could see what else is out there, past the end of the world…but no. She can’t do that.

Instead she focuses on the feeling, on her brother’s words, searching for a magic she no longer has. She’s beginning to think hope is getting the best of her when she finds it, a tiny piece of the magic she used to wield. She pulls, the winds around her gusting stronger and faster than a moment before. She grins, though she can’t be sure, and she calls to Ru before pumping her wings to go higher, looking for air stiller than that near the cliffs. She finds it, a pocket of peace above their home, and she tugs again. The wind howls around her, taking hold of her wings and sending her on, out toward the horizon that they would never reach.

Her laugh is loud now though, bouncing on the wind gusts that buffet the once Princess, once Queen (there is no herd to be queen of now, is there?), once sister and daughter and windwalker. Her teal eyes search for Ru, for her quiet but amazing friend, so they can dance on the wind together.

lyanna