From the balcony of sky she descended, the heavens at her back and still burning on the sultry high of sunset, saturating the Threshold in an abundance of tasteful ruby and gold. That brittle curtain of branches and dry leaves parted explosively with damsel's sudden transition from sky to earth; hooves still flashing wildly in the glow whilst they cycled in weightless grace, as though submerged in water's dreamlike suspension, descending the staircase of light-beams. Her back bowed into a limber arch as she alighted; before fore-hooves had even eased upon the scarlet carpet of fallen leaves, rosy eyes were already surveying the featureless gap of the clearing - gaze narrowed in a manner critically sharp, coolly lidded behind a low hanging veil of long lashes.

An infant hurricane was summoned as her wings beat once more, finally settling in a falsely seamless arrangement at her sides - and then all fell into stark silence as the lady analyzed the nature of her situation. "Ay me!" Nary batting a eye, the phrase of distress was uttered in a hybridization of a silky growl and a choleric purr...just how far off course had the storm forced her?

The court seer had woven intricate descriptions of a desert land, heaving with wind and sand and dynamic allure, just like the stolen archaic home of her kin. Here though, bright eyes saw only a forest, vast and endless in the depth of dusk shadows, and most worrying, the fact that no fellow face of a displaced kinsmen greeted her as she had been told to expect. She had no choice but to linger though - aimless flight over the forest had already revealed clearings to be a rare sight, and she was too weary to continue on at the risk of flying on into the night, and her wings failing to keep her aloft.

Also notable was the fact that the area seemed to offer at least some hospitality, even if only in the fact that it was empty, and devoid of the nauseating stench of a predator's hot maw - but she shunned the safety, and began to move. The stiff actions of shoulders and hips propelled an eerily unmatched fluid manner of movement, each extension and suspension of a fine boned limb measured, nearly too evenly so, into a weary gait tailored towards finesse by immeasurable control. What was sought could still be near, just around the corner, somewhere, within in the pitch of the forest's shadow - she would continue on, knowing that there was at least the safe haven of the clearing at her dappled back, from which she could then clamber back into the sky should danger appear.

Without hesitation, the systematic fall of hooves that led her aimlessly through the forest had ceased, she pausing coolly at the sound of another creature’s approach. A cheek was gently illuminated in the blush of dying sunlight at she faced him, head elevated and swinging fluidly to direct a large eye toward the stranger in a single, birdlike motion, silent for only a moment as she analyzed the stallion with a gaze of depthless tranquility.

“Hāl wes þū.” The archaic greeting, soft and foreign after so many days without speech, slipped easily from parted lips. The prior movement that had angled her vision shifted easily into a flip of the head, resettling the locks of coiling earthen lilac heavily upon the other cheek, the side of her face that remained in shadow. The movement of her head was a precursor for the movement of her body, the lady easing fluidly into movement, sidling closer to the stallion in a leisurely sashay as she continued with the address.

“I am Godiva, magi of Sol’s Jewel, se Scarlet Desert.” Heart felt words were quietly and simply spoken, the plaintive oration softened by the sharp glint within the warmth of rosy eyes, and the lady’s neutral tone loosened suddenly into one of mild curiosity. “Tell me, Phoenix…what does life within your Dragon’s Throat entail?” The steps concluded, as she was near beside the stallion’s winged flank now, close enough to scent the arid perfume of sand and heat upon his skin. Uncertain to whether or not she had been forsaken, perhaps this was her deliverance.

The glossy expanse of her bright eye was full upon the fellow, studying him with a gentleness not telling of the calculations behind the wild vibrancy of her gaze. He spoke of a desert, and the very notion of returning to a place like her violent, beautiful home was cause for an injection of hot energy that hummed eagerly in the fine corridor of every vein. There was a inherent drive patterned into her genes, one desiring the sanctity of a herd, and for a realm kin to the dynamic sands of blood and rose that defined her seemingly infertile motherland, a mistress merciless in the upbringing of her denizens – but the subtle rigidity with which Godiva held herself was telling of a wind-whipped heritage; she had been hardened, animated, immaculately polished by the lands from whence her refinement had been made so passionately complete.

Though so weary and worn by drifting, and her most recent battering by the storm, fatigue would never overrule the logic with which all matters were judged. “How generous.” Soft vocals drifted from her lips as a lush murmur, dark and heavy with buried contemplation, articulated in the following second. “But what of your politics, and the domains surrounding?” The individual perfumes of others hung around the trunks of the trees, wafting boldly toward her and meeting with the sculptured curves of her face.

What was offered as a description was swiftly, so very nearly lazily, filed away – the information was hardly marginal, but having yet to fully gauge how thoroughly a stranger’s opinion could be trusted, the stallion’s word was not necessarily one that should be cradled close to heart. The notion of unicorns existing separately from the rest registered as an oddity, though not nearly enough so as to deserve an inquiry in return; the horned forest dwellers she knew had lived lives intertwined with those of the desert folk – contact limited by distance, but a bond forged by years of intermarriage and union in war. Lands changed though, and the creatures with them, she too would recognize that adaptation was a necessity to be practiced. She would not argue his explanation, but it would have to be proven before full acceptance.

“It seems then, that I have much to learn.” A true statement, it trickling forth in a naiads bubbling purl of laughter, effortlessly light, though shaded darker by the cool reserve of it’s speaker. The damsel would never let on to any lack of understanding; it could prove a weakness easily taken advantage of by those that took delight in molding minds that easily accepted a tale. But time moved on; a glance to the west betrayed her readiness to leave; the shadows of the forest were stretched painfully long and thin, though no true lady of light, she was no true creature of the night – skulking in shadows whilst her entirety remained concealed was hardly preferential, a show cheapened by the absence of detail.

Her chiseled face turned back, timeless facial features softening, briefly, with the tautness of dark lips somewhat surrendered to nostalgic memory, and on the verge of curving into a genuine smile. “Things that greet solely in shadow are not always as well behaved as yourself, swēte, and I would dearly like to see this home of yours.“ The quote on night was an old one, but so often held true. Her eyes were impervious to even the most blinding lights, well accustomed to the brilliance of the sun magnified by bright desert sands – but her nighttime vision was mediocre. She did not wish to linger at night.

“Shall we depart?” Coiling tendrils of cherry curls brushed the floor as hips swung, the dainty white of ankles crossing as she angled toward the direction of the clearing - the place from whence she had first fallen, for surely it was time to return to the sky? Though physically weary of flight, the mystic was even wearier of the solitary existence that had been endured thus far. She would follow her newfound guide to the Throat, and thereafter, as she was well aware, likely collapse from exhaustion.