Ree.

There was something primal about the cry of a bird of prey during the hunt, and it caused the bay mare to jump in place, head thrown up in surprise, hazel eyes wide as they followed the unexpected swoop of the elegant huntress diving into grass. With easy beats of her fine wings, feathered ends a cascade of brilliant colors, she lands in the grass just hoof falls away. And there standing slightly further still is a stallion Ree had not seen while she had been pursuing the lush oasis grass, the gentle rays of a warm dawn sun casting soft hues of orange and red across the ivory of his coat, the obsidian splashes gleaming with unmatched brilliance. Nervously Ree stands in place, ears flickering, a telltale sign of her nervous temperament and uncertainty. She stares at the wings folded to his side, the graceful arc and slope that run from the juncture of his shoulder to the edges of each fine feather that nearly trails the emerald blades beneath him. A familiar sense of longing settles like a weight in the young mare’s chest, and she imagines what it must be like to possess the power of flight, to soar far above what mortal troubles plagued the earth below an endless sky.

“Good morning m’lady, forgive my friend here…she seems to be lacking manners of late.”

Ree smile’s sheepishly, glancing in the direction that the stallion gestures, observing the pretty bird with muted fascination, doing her best not to stare. She is quite stunning, exquisite, with a fine plumage of the creamiest ivory whites, and indigos, reds and violets. Ree is reminded of a cloudy sunset sky, with the disc of the daytime star falling just below the line of the horizon, allowing the deepest colors to linger in the air before night chases them into oblivion. The dead snake is coiled in the creature’s talons, maimed and mutilated as she munches on its carcass, oblivious to the gruesomeness of her actions, content to simply exist in the moment. Ree has never allowed herself to experience the luxury of blissful ignorance, too many times she fretted over unlikely scenariors, the opinions of others, and all the bad and terrible things that could befall were she to take any sort of risk or delve into danger. Cautiousness was her nature, wariness her stronghold, while the outside world was nothing short of terrifying.

“She is beautiful.” Ree murmurs quietly, her voice soothing to the sound, intonations clear and cool like a long drink from a sparkling brook on a birdsong morning. Her hazel eyes are like a green field threatened to turn gold during the summer, and they remain slightly downcast, only daring to glance at the mighty stallion before her in brief, bashful intervals from beneath long lashes. The ebony locks of her main fall in tangled disarray across the length of her neck, her forelock wild and twisted across the dish of her petite face, and her tail drags through the knee length grass that surrounds her. She looks like a woodland fairy, a nymph pulled from a storybook, cast amongst the unlikely lands of the Dragon’s Throat. In comparison to the pallid and shadowed warrior she is small, fragile, and enshrouded in the frailty of her youthfulness, her naivety ever apparent in the awkwardness of her stance, her soft spoken demeanor, the implicit lack of worldliness that seems to follow her everywhere she goes.

“I am Ree,” She offers in shy greeting, “Who might you and your friend be?”