a crack of lightning, a icy cold whip lashes her face. Wet locks plastered to her throat in moisture the eagle screeches in rage, monstrous wings flapping against the force
of the coming wind with little more then a dent as proof of her efforts. Her sisters and she are being torn from each other, ripped apart and used as mop's against the rain that falls in sheets all around her. The white's of the eagle's sharp gaze glints in the darkness of the storm clouds, as one by one, she loses sight of her flock. This was not how it was meant to be, she thinks, as a bellowing cry escapes into the frozen air. They were meant to be together, to be one, they were meant to balance, to overwhelm. As one's body cannot function without its arms, or it's legs, or it's head, or it's eyes and lungs and all of it, yet the damned storm continues on, it thrusts her forwards towards the side of a rocky cliff.
Desperation is shown in the creatures struggle to stay in the air, struggle to keep away from the stony daggers pointed towards her chest, seeking blood, her death, seeking her fall towards the Sodom below. The avian's wings beat with frantic pace, one, two, three, one, two three, and she refrains a scream as the wind presses once more into her back.
As she hurtles towards the cliff's edge, she slides the lids to her visuals shut tight, awaits impact, and then - then she tumbles unto slick, smooth, rocky earth as she is forced with momentum towards the back of the cavern. Her side hits the rocky wall with a thud, and her head is not far after the rest of her ship as it sinks below the ocean's tide.
The last thing she remembers before the world flickers and goes out is her wondering if she will see her sisters again, if they are alright, if they have been spared the brute force of the hurricane outside.


The last thing she remembers for two years. Two, bittersweet years as she presses forwards, searching for her youngest sister Antiope, and her other siblings - Iris, Persephone, Selene, Cealestis, Hemera?
She does not know what has become of them, she does not know if they still live, and the guilt hangs upon her mind like the body of a dead man tied to a rope around a branch of a sturdy oak. The thrill of the escape, the happiness, the warmth has left her, burnt through like the flames of a forest fire, and it has left her in ashes.
Oh, she looked for them, sure, she looked for them for a millennial age, it seems, and yet she is hopeless, for she has found no hope, no diamond in the midst
of a rocky cavern. Are you alive?
Was she even alive?

The Daughter of Earth is not sure, as her hoof beats thunder into the ground below, not so unlike the sounds of the storm she had experienced first hand those years ago.
Is she dead, then?

The heat of this land is almost unbearable, weighs down upon her shoulders like the weight of the sky Atlas himself held up as eternal punishment for his deeds. The clink of the small glass container of ink, tied into her mane with string brings her back to reality with a harsh slap. Perhaps it's better if she were dead, the poison that the ink has inflicted into her blood burns her even now, she is turning, she is becoming like Her.
Bittersweet.

The Warrior Princess pauses at the edge of a pool of water, dust billowing into the air at the sudden pause of her hooves moving onward. Gazing down into the water with a icy expression upon her maw, she is quite aware she is lost.
She has not encountered another soul for miles now, and uncertainity begins to brim at the edges of her mind. Will this labyrinth go on, forever?
No.

The steady, firm voice comes from the back of her mind, the logical, collected part of her mind, that struggles to fight the insanity the ink brings with it.
Keep moving.
What, the Earth daughter queries, is the point?
And for once, she is met with nothing.

But silence.

A singer's deep baritone fills her harks, masculine and hardy, the Earth Princess raises her dome to gaze with indifference in her gleaming gaze. Though the sound concerns her little, her curiosity grumbles with hunger at its sound. And more importantly, if the stranger is willing, she may learn of the land she has been cast upon. She shifts her position so that she is ready to react to a threat if one is posed, and awaits the entrance she is certain will soon make itself known.
It did.

Into her sight came a well-sized equine with muscles that were shown beneath charcoal skin, smaller then she, yet of the draft-type build that made itself known in her lines most prominently. His mouth was open, and he was still singing the foreign lyrics that she had heard only moments before. It seemed that he didn't notice her for a long moment, as he continues moving towards her, until after what seemed like a few ages.
"Cairete?" A wisp of a foreign accent is heard beneath the deep, yet feminine tones of her voice, a wisp to complement the foreign greeting

The reaction when he notices the Earth Princess is almost comical.
The brute's harks perk forward with alert, and the Princess is almost certain a wave of self-inflicted embarrassment flashes across his face like the breaking
of a dam. "Den me noiazei-" The foreign words come again as she gazes at him with a mix of amusement and confusion.

He speaks.
But it is not in her tongue, not her native tongue, and the faintest of sighs escapes her maw.
He stumbles over his first words, there's another awkward pause, and he introduces himself.
Solace. Of the Windtossed Foothills.
What?

She catches herself before allowing more words to slip from her maw, there's still silence between them as she
continues to stare at him with a continually bemused and indifferent expression mixing across her dome.
"Nice voice." The words that come now are blunt, yet it is the way the Princess speaks. Her personality is reflected with ease into her tones.
"Call me Brighid. I didn't know this land existed."

The brute tilts his head to the side as a confused mutt, and she is certain now that Solace does not speak her language. The Princess allows the bitterness
to swell in her soul as she watches the Warrior observe her. He seems to be deciding if she is intelligent enough to speak English, or if she is beyond his native tongue.
She does know how to speak English, and when she does, her dry compliment receives the slightest of a smile from the draft. She assumes she has done the socially correct response then, the Earth Princess does not quite understand the mingling of a flock of birds and was never interested in politics. So she merely continues to gaze at him after she is finished speaking, whilst her tail swats at the insects that attempt to land on her heavily-built frame.
A deep chuckle resounds from the draft's throat, and Brighid perks her harks further in mild interest. More confusion bubbles inside her mind.
Did she say something amusing?

His tone, however, is good natured when he addresses her once more.
He thought this place was as any other? What was so strange of this land, that it matched not his own former?

The purpose of his journey here is spoken then, and she allows the name of this landmark to roll across her tongue as the water on a avian's feathers.
the Threshold. Newcomers came here, all of them, flowing in as the river from a great lake into this country known as Helovia.
Herds? Outcast bands? A foreign concept to the Princess who grew up inside a Kingdom where different herds were mere myth. She had ruled with a iron fist, her Mother had, and the Kingdom was united as one.
Solace pauses here, and his sky-blue orbs seem to spark with something the Princess did not catch. Was he eyeing her wings? As the thought crossed her cranium, she allowed the impressive wingspan to spread ever so slightly outwards. A breeze ruffled through her primaries, and across her secondaries. Was the land he came from lacking of her species so prominently? She returns the stare with a blank expression, expecting him to either explain the stare, or continue on discussing his homeland with her.
It may have continued for a awkward amount of time, if he had not continued the discussion he had left off.

A invitation is thrown to her hooves with ease, and she is given the impression he must do this recruitment work quite often.
The names and titles of his leaders flow through her mind, and once more, she allows them to settle thickly unto her tongue and down her throat.
Apollo and Phaedra, the Merciful and the Opulent. She refrains a deep, hardy laugh at the titles that fade off each name. The Merciful, the Opulent?
What frightening titles, the thought crosses her mind with amusement. It was so unlike what her Mother would have preferred that she finds it deeply amusing, in a dry sense of fashion.

The Earth Princess only now recognizes it is her time to speak, and she does so after a few moments, attempting to decide the quickest way to phrase what she wishes to know, in the shortest amount of words possible. The baritone of her voice rumbles once more.
"Give me a reason to accept your invitation."
The warm, earthy gaze is set upon him once more with her full, undivided attention.

His next words will decide if she chooses to follow him back to his home or not. It is best that he chooses carefully, for it is not everyday the Earth Princesses' attention is given so highly to a individual.

The two are a odd meeting. Taciturn each, the silence draws forth from the well-capable lungs with overwhelming force. The gentle hum of insects, the breeze through the trees, the trickle of water from a river, the song of the birds ahead. It brings them yet closer to the Earth itself, yet closer to the nature beneath the hard hooves and firm frames. Harks perked, Solace seems to consider her words with careful observation.
Her earthen gaze switches from the Knight back to the water, observing the mixes of orange and white,
the darting movements of foreign aquatic fish to her knowledge. Bubbles rise to the surface of the pond, not so unlike
the bubbles that form within her mind now, cause dizziness and nausea. The ink causes her heart to pulsate, she feels it's ache through each vein as if
tumors had begun to grow in her blood system. Her hooves shift with a onslaught of motion sickness,
the world spins, the waters seem to tip over. The Earth Princess sways the slightest bit, the weight of her frame attempts to drag her
down towards the ground below, and the poison digs it's claws into her mind, beckons her to smash the skull of the low Knight upon the rocks and watch the blood
spill into the pristine surface of the water, stain it, as the symbol upon her shoulder stains her.

As soon as the sickness overwhelms her, it leaves, and it is a miraculous discovery that she has not fallen to the Earth on one knee. Her wings draw inwards towards
her sides, the warmth of the kalokaíri Sun seems to beat down upon her with force now, and sweat trickles down her sides. The breeze does nothing to cool her ruffled feathers, and she shifts her gaze uncomfortably back to the Knight. Damn the poison that flows in her blood, if she could cut it from her as easy as she could break the ground beneath her hooves she would remove it from her as if it were a infectious limb.
Has he spoken yet? No, the Warrior's maw opens as he begins to rattle off the reasons for her return to his Kingdom.

She listens to him with a tired expression upon her dome, the wave of sickness has left her exhausted, and allows a deep rumble as response after he is done.
Ah, sister's, brother's? What would they do when the poison became too much for her to fight, when it consumed her brain, and her personality with it?
A deep sigh escapes her throat, rumbles out from her core, and with a grim smile, the Princess jerks her head to direct her maw
behind the Knight.
"We should get going then, Solace."