The trip back to the Edge had been, in a word, slow. Alysanne, with her endless amounts of patience, thought it would be best. She had lingered by the beach for a while – happy that the worst of winter had passed before she had found the little life she cared for now – and again by the lake in the grove so that Hemlock could have a bit of a rest. And now, now was the last part of their journey. She was so happy the weather was cooperating; this would have been a lot more difficult had there been rain or even a late-winter snowstorm. She probably would have held up in the woods between the beach and here, waiting it out!
Of course, Hemlock was a lot hardier than she gave him credit for – but how was Alysanne supposed to know? He was so tiny, smaller than her nose, and looked so fragile.
She was approaching the wall, looking for a safe spot to easily navigate through, when she heard a very familiar voice call out. Emerging from the trees, Alysanne’s smile lit up at the sight of her beautiful queen and dearest friend – Kahlua! Instead of racing towards her as she would normally do, the painted pegasus whinnied a response as she slowly made her way over, mindful of the little owl on her back, nestled in the feathers on her withers.
“Kahlua! How are you, my dear?” It was so good to see her above ground, with a cheerful look back on her face. Alysanne’s own face was quite lit up itself as she moved gracefully to greet the other mare, stopping just before her.
Rather sooner than she expected, her excitement over the events of the day took over and she couldn’t contain the words. This might be an ordinary occurrence in Helovia but it had happened to
her and even with all the mess of fears, she wanted to share this with Kahlua.
“You’ll never guess what I found!” Turning just a little now, she carefully lowered one of her wings so that Kahlua could peer in and see, amongst the soft white feathers, a down-covered little chick with his eyes still closed. There was no lack of adoration in her voice when she spoke again.
“His name is Hemlock - isn’t he adorable?” Alysanne had no trouble seeing how cute the little mess of skin and feathers was, though she worried that not everyone would pick up on it.
hope you don't mind us crashing this thread xD
also for reference, Hemlock would look something like this right now: baby owl