Bellona
To win the war, but flee the battle, is one of the Gods' greatest sins.

There was no comfort to be given from the bitter tempests that bombarded the forest with its fury. Snow tumbled freely from sagging branches and shriveled leaves, mixing with the soggy white carpet that concealed the once-flourishing forest floor. The only sign that hinted at the possibility of life in the desolate forest was a trail of migrating deer tracks, but the herd had passed under the snow-laden bows days before, and had long since stripped the earth of its scarce foliage. The snow has been falling for days now, but the tracks stubbornly remain, the icy drops melting in the little pools of mud left inside each hoofprint. Slowly the stagnant pools of water are beginning to swell; with no plants to provide nourishment for, they are of little use, and prove only to make the path much more difficult to navigate on foot for the weary traveler.

But not all are the prisoners of the earth, for they lack the bonds that tie them to the barren land far beneath the horizon.

The winds that had wreaked havoc upon the canopy of molted trees is no match for the chaotic torrent that rips snow from their branches in an eruption fit for even the fiery Heart. Glistening white globs are thrown in every direction possible, pelting their ice-encrusted forms against the pair of wings that had sent them skyward. The vibrant greens and maroons seen on the soaring beast are cast on the snow as it falls, briefly giving them a slightly tinted appearance before gravity claims them for itself. The shadow of the creature silently passes over the aging deer tracks; the dead or dying carcasses of plants; the sleeping animals inside their warm dens. In this time of death and dormancy she has never felt so alive, this half-goddess between earth and sky, capable of traversing freely in both realms, and never forced to choose just one.

Each glorious wing furled and unfurled in time with the pulse of a shoulder that acted as a common ground between bird and equine. Like the rest of the vixen’s stunning figure, they too are clothed in bright green and slowly fade to a dusty red. Her body ripples with the muscles that are common among her breed, but they are enhanced by the exertion of past battles and the countless days of flight that it had taken to land her here, in this realm. Long, tangled lock of metallic blues, purples, and greens are tousled carelessly by the breeze that whips past her speeding form, giving the femme a wild and almost feral appearance. The bouquet of feathers sprouting on her withers are like rippling waves, whipping against her beating wings and striped rump as she soars. She is a huntress of the sky, this exquisite beast, and she is not a foreigner to the landscape beneath her dark hooves, either.

The winds that lash at her banner and beat against her bodice begin to shift as the hybrid tilts her wings, directing her tall body to an opening nestled deep inside the forest. The sky is darkening quickly and, although she is not afraid of flying at night, the speed at which the forest is beginning to blacken is unsettling.

What the hell is going on? It’s the one thought that manages to escape the finely-crafted defenses of her mind as she pulls her extravagant wings to her sides. As her heavy equine body plummets towards the powdered earth, the world grows steadily darker. It is a gradual shift from light to dark, deepening in shade for every 30-feet that the warrior drops, but it still seems so sudden. She could only have been flying for a few hours at the very least – her knowledge in reading the sun’s path of rotation had allowed her to keep time – and she had left at first light that morning. Of course, Frostfall was a time of shorter days, but the tribeswoman knew that she had at least 9 hours of daylight remaining before she should be forced to rest. In Arto, anyway, she had had a full day of sunlight to be spent tracking members of opposing tribes – or slaughtering them.

The Azteca cringes at the thought of her past lands, and the words of her people as they forced her to abandon them ring in her ears, “Leave us, xocotzin! The blood of our Gods flows in your veins; you must live to make us great again! Titeotl now, fly so that you may fight another day.” They had been idiots to let her go, and it was because of their devotion to her father and his ancestors that they had allowed themselves to be slaughtered. Their determination to keep the fallen chieftain’s bloodline alive had been the only thing to save her in the Great War, and yet she felt that they had made the wrong choice. Her family, her tribe, her everything had died that day -- and she had been denied the right to rejoin them in the spirit realm because of her blood.

So much rode upon her shoulders now that she felt that the weight of it all was what was pulling her closer to the ground. She knew that she could end it all, though. All she had to do was keep her wings wrapped around her sides, and allow her body to crumple and shatter when it collided with the earth. But she had made a vow, and she was determined to go through with her words before any last breaths were drawn from her lungs.

Tri-colored wings snap outwards from her plummeting body, filling with the chilly air as they labored against the current to slow her descent. She hadn’t reacted fast enough, it seemed, because her dark hooves drove into the snow with so much force that her legs burrowed into the mush and struck against the dirt beneath it, sending a jolt of pain up each striped pillar. The fae was used to experiencing pain and thought nothing of it, although each tall limb struggled to bear her weight for a moment. As the hybrid waited for body to adjust to an earthbound lifestyle, she scanned the shadowed forest with pale yellow eyes. The fiery orbs detected no predators, but if there was anything out there that was searching for a meal, she would happily accept the challenge. It had been a while since she had fought her last battle, and she was aching to repent for the sin she had been forced to commit so long ago.


"Talk talk talk."

{OOC: xocotzin - beloved last daughter; titeotl - you are god}