She would have landed upon proper footing to turn my wisdom upon heel, switching the sides of our story to match my own grief. But out of mercy or perhaps blind resolution, maybe even kindness, the lass kept her silence. Not pushing my comfort aside, but also not fully accepting it. I watched as she pulled yet another feather from an appendage that had become more scar than anything. A burden upon the Oracle of Sun, and little else, I listened with a tugging heart as she described how the unicorns had taken her right to fly and left this child alone with a heaviness that no creature should bear.
Then Africa asked me a question, if I remembered the hot headed brute that stalked her in Heavenly Fields some seasons ago. My crown nodded and eyes rose with silent wonderance of his significance in all this mess. The fire of anger didn’t kindle until my herd sister revealed that her damage had been caused by none other than the one I’d captured, cared for and released on a good note. An unmeetable glint struck my gaze, pools turned into bright honey crystals. Teeth ground upon themselves as jaws snapped shut and I pulled from her. Fina chirped, her brilliant eyes upon me, reading and seeing tolerance fly on a cruel breeze.
I’d offered that fool stallion clemency, and this was how he repaid my kindness? Brow furrowed deeply, twice now a had unicorn wounded one of my kin. Destroyed their innocence. Like a raging phoenix the fires of discontent coursed a hot path through and through, pushing along the walls of my heart until I felt it tighten flesh. “Do not apologize.” I couldn’t stand to see her plying for forgiveness, comparing my pain to the agony that she went through—twice with the same stupid cur.
Gaze that had been tender and full of compassion moments before was now alive with sparks, “please,” I said with quieter note, grappling for what remained of the warmth I’d previously felt, “Don’t apologize for speaking the truth. It is a thing that I would also learn.” That stallion had been angry with me, not with Africa—it was because of me that she had lost her wing. My gaze shifted from her, shamed and bitter by the choices I’d made without even knowing their repercussion.
“Fina.” I called, inwardly so listening ears wouldn’t hear words passed between us, “Search the caves for this man, I would break words with him.” I passed the image between us, of his likeness and his face in particular. “Do not engage him.” She instantly sprang from her branch, the bones of her kill fell into a small heap on the ground. This monster would not bed down with the rest of us. Not while we slept, he would answer for his sins—just as I would. Right forehoof rose to clip against soft turf, gold sprang from that source and I called it into action. Slipping toward the lifeless feathers she had discarded. Each fragile tip was touched and went from a dull grey to a brilliant hue of gold. Pure from the inside out, gently I pushed those feather up using fine strings of the same element. “What is broken, can sometimes fly again.” They rose to her, and I lingered there. "May I return these to ye?" The words in themselves might hold little meaning to her, but by this action of me sealing these feathers in her mane (or wherever she would have them) was necessary...
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