She travels through the sand and dust, a figure of earthen shadows and obsidian silk, with aureate eyes that peer wide and moon-like from a refined visage, uncertain, perhaps even unseeing as she travels through the expanse of the plains that surround the edge of Helovia’s burning heart. She had wandered away from the confines of the Throat in an uncharacteristic act of exploration, her chaotic thoughts, like lead weights on her soul, sending her out into the open. She follows an unknown path through the tall grasses, slender, feminine ears rotating in nervous spirals atop her head, and a wild, ebony forelock falling in haphazard locks across her dished face. There is fearfulness in the quick slicing of her hooves through the sandy loam, anxiety present in the flare of her nostrils, the white of her eyes. She has no knowledge of what she seeks, or where she might be headed; she simply goes- driven by an indescribable to need to find something.

Perhaps herself.

The Dragon’s Throat was her home now; she had been sheltered and herded in by the kind and fair Cassiopeia into the barren land of red dirt and wind. So many winged brethren resided within the safety of Lady Kri’s fair and just guidance. She felt out of place at times, lingering in the background like a forgotten memory, an ornament to other’s daily conversation as she passes by in a dance of cautious intrigue, remaining in silence for the indecision of her jaded heart. She was left wondering, pondering, and hoping for an explanation for her existence, afraid to seek the answer for fear of falling victim to the cruel claws of change, the dreadful fingers of fate, each of them attempting to ensnare her in their inevitability. She is caught up in the turmoil of her own storm, constantly fixated on avoiding the lightning strikes of livings lesser moments, determined to remain safe from all injuries at all costs, whether it be her body or her heart.

Her mother had been so sickly. So frail and fragile, breakable like glass, easily shattered. And Ree had watched her mother’s body fail her, her heart give way to exhaustion, just another creature returned to the dust of the earth from which they came. The memory of the loss haunts her constantly, drives her into near fits of madness as she struggles to stay afloat on the suffocating waters of her own paranoia. Will she be so easily forgotten? Will she to fade, fall into nothing, an image to be overlooked by the feebleness of the mind as it ages, and perhaps even the heart?

The bay mare comes to a stop in a clearing amongst the tall swaying grasses, the warm breeze blowing through the area in a sudden gust, as if a wind tunnel existed there. It catches the black locks of her hair in its embrace, throwing them chaotically against the smooth flat of her slender neck, her long tail tangled around her pasterns in protest to the zephyrs grip, a coil of black lace against her petite legs. She is frozen for a moment, suspended in her waking thoughts, distracted by the many flittering, flickering images there, ever changing and constantly shifting to form a fantasy that will allow her to breathe. She only wishes she could reduce her frantic state to some semblance of tranquility, but it lingers, teasing and laughing maniacally, just out of her reach.

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