It was a difficult storm to maneuver, tumultuous and dangerously quiet. I was stupid, full of energy, all too ready to take to the skies, ready to be filled with heart-stopping, wondrous adrenaline. The rush of insane power tingling your skin as your wings pump the air, the quiet rustle of feathers aligning themselves to help you soar, help you glide upwards into the belly of the thick clouds. The storm was so tempting, and it was my namesake- Svetlana the Stormchaser. Not blue-sky-chaser. It was a massive beast, a prowling black clouds filling the horizon ominously fast, curling tendrils expanding to encompass the edge of the world, flashes of light breaking its ebony-gray belly, the crack of the lightning whipping through the air to touch the earth below. I was flying high, extraordinarily high, hovering what seemed like in space, wings churning to keep me aloft, so high I could see the world bending, watch as the storms completely filled this thin skein separating earth from the heavens. I could see the trees, the deep forest, a shadow-infested land to the west, the ocean lapping at the shores of Helovia, and I took a breath. Air was incredibly thin up here, lacking in oxygen even for my enormous lungs, yet somehow I managed to breathe, to sustain my energy store as the storm prowled closer, ready to swallow me like a cat eating the mouse, the wolf snapping up the foal. Yet I began flying, using my primaries and secondaries with ease, spiraling and hoop-tailing and loop-de-looping towards the storm, completely at ease with this beast before me. Svetlana the Stormchaser.

Then, the storm's massive hands took me inside it's heart. Rain. It lashed my skin, soaked me through to my ivory bones, glistening in dewy droplets on my wings. The rain itself was warm, although I knew as soon as I left the storm my wings and my body would quickly become encompassed by ice, leaving me to slowly circle downwards, careful not to snap myself in two. It was glorious, the massive rumble around me, surrounding me, blocking out all of my senses, rumbling in my honeycomb bones, making me tremble like the bird caught in the fox's mouth. Not out of fear- out of pure excitement, pure need to fly and live on the adrenaline. Adrenaline junkie. I flipped and spun and winged higher, played in my playground, dropping down the slides called downdrafts and climbing the ladders called thermals. Beautiful. It was fun, so much fun! Until I realized just how dangerous the game had gotten.

Lightning. It flickered its tongue, snapping me up, the cat tired of my treacherous games with it. Yellow. The smell of burning flesh. And I was dropping, dropping downwards, wings aching, plummeting out of control in a much more dangerous game. Death. Why was I dying so early? I wanted to cry and laugh as I was swept downwards, the earth coming up much too quickly, delirious and in pain.

I've never heard a sound worse than the crunch of delicate bones and the last roar of thunder as the storm spit me out from its teeth. Neither would I ever forget that dreadful snap, the split of honey-comb bones, the red pain that flashed before my eyes as I was tumbling out of the sky, an apple dropping from a tree. I had broken through a thin layer of trees, wing askew, dropped into a snowbank and leaving a thirty-foot trench in my wake.

Was I alive, or dead? Everything seemed to be going quite dark...