L e e k a

This was the farthest north she had ever been. Amazing how in just a few days travel one could find themselves into a land of perpetual winter, a land slaved in ice and snow even in the summer months. It was not all that brutal now, however, considering it was deep within the spring so the air was quite mild, for the north at least, and not wholly unbearable for southerner like her. Of course, that begs the question doesn't it? Why was she here?

One: because she could.

Two: She wanted to see the Aurora.

And Three: just to be anywhere outside the Worlds Edge.

Boredom had ravaged the poor mares brain for too long and now she had started a bullheaded campaign against it, giving in to impulses she had largely ignored and dismissed as recklessness. Leeka would be lying if she said she had finally settled in, gotten used to Helovia in the meager year she had inhabited it. There was still so much she found strange, unnerving even. Horses with wings, horses with horns, omniscient Gods, magic a fluent commodity yet rare. A variable melting pot of all equines from estranged lands far and near beside the original natives. It was so different from all she used to know, but at least she was trying to embrace it. And this latest adaptation was the concept of free range. The fact that herd members could travel beyond the main herd body was...well, a deviant thought. One that brought into question safety and a defiance of the natural order. A lone horse was an easy target and almost always begets harm, but Helovians exercised this practice daily. It wasn't even an offense...which was wholly mind boggling...and yet the most euphoric liberation she had ever known aside from one other thing.

Leeka had been born with expectation, the daughter of the first magiker in centuries. It had been thought she carried the gift in her blood, which evidently was not the case. She had no power in the least and would have been coined the disappointment, the broken-heir. All that grooming for an anti-climax. Sometimes Leeka thought a greater power had taken pity on her and traded that sorrow for another, the complete and utter loss of her homeland. Ma and da too... she thought idly, gazing at the sky high above as a dance of light caught her attention. I wonder which was kinder...

And yet, out of the chaos, came something beautiful, a gift Leeka couldn't find the words to say thank you for. She was allowed to be... her. Herself and nothing else. Free to move and run as she pleased, to build her life with her own choices with no one to second-guess them. For in Helovia she was just Leeka. Leeka of the Worlds Edge.

The story was finally hers -- and only hers.

Magic always comes at a price.

As if on cue the heavens above burst into a phantasmal display of luminous greens, flickering in swaying motions that arced and danced as unevenly as licks of flame on an entire theater of black stars. It bathed the land in hues of eerie green, tinting the snowbound steppes into a variable summer land for once. It was simply enchanting, yet as soon as she was able to see it the image blurred unexpectedly. It took a few blinks to discover the culprit and the tears ran warmly down her cheeks, quickly running to a luke temperature before trailing off the side of her face. An expected response, really. She did easily lose herself in reminiscing and it didn't take much to move her to tears either, silly thing. The thought elicited a curt chuckle, a sort of joke at herself as it were. You have to work on this. Right now is fine, but seriously, before it becomes embarrassing, okay?

What was unexpected, however, was the approach of footsteps in a hurry, beating like a drum in the silent air. Standing on a ledge it only took a moment to locate a dark figure below rushing across the field steppe at a blind pace, the snow thrown carelessly about in a gust in its wake. A thread of fear and panic pierced the spotted mare's heart when she recognized the figure as a unicorn and at that probably a Basin member. Leeka had only heard gossip about the Unicorns of the Basin and from what she could divine there were plenty of mixed feelings about them. The one thing that was certain, however, is that they had a reputation and one of fear and hate, even in the Worlds Edge. Leeka didn't want to believe but the impression had sunk in regardless- Basiners were best to be avoided. As far as she knew the Frostbreath Steppes were technically unclaimed by any herd so she couldn't possibly be intruding, and as far as she could tell she hadn't been spotted either. She hoped it might remain that way.

Ducking her head, Leeka hide behind what sparse vegetation was around, hoping to remain undetected as the figure passed below. What she didn't notice, to her detriment, was the iced-over stream her front hoof was placed on, covertly covered in snow. As the black unicorn came well within sight and was passing below the shell of ice broke, its cave in presided by a horrendously loud crack, plunging her foot into fridge water and tossing blocks of ice to tumble down the hill as well, thoroughly exposing her presence to the world. Leeka could only gaze down at the stranger who could not have been more then fifteen feet away with a sheepish expression on her face, completely embarrassed and frightened at the same time.

"Sorry."

She was sorry for cracking the ice, sorry for exposing herself and sorry for drawing your attention. Forgive her.

_____________________
"talking."
Thoughts
@[Valka]