"The time for war is over."

I wanted so badly to believe what Cera said, to latch on to it and hold it as a truth, but I knew it wasn't. I knew that the world and the horses living in it had their evils. So long as selfishness, prejudices, anger, and hatred ran so rampantly through the land I knew that there would be war. Maybe not now, maybe not tomorrow, but there would be war again. There would be more death, more hurt, more suffering, but I simply smiled and kept those thoughts to myself. Thankfully he moved on from there rather quickly and on to the whole reason he had really sought me out in the first place. We were to craft keys for the Throaters that couldn't fly across the water to the Throat.

The first thing that ran through my head was that I should have been practicing. It was like Cera could read my mind, though, because no sooner had I thought that I should have practiced he was asking if I had. "No." I murmured sheepishly. "Not with all the fighting... and... stuff." Like flying around looking for Dragomir, who didn't want to be found. "But now's as good a time as any." Because I had to learn sometime and why not now? Why not when I had the best teacher the Throat had to offer to walk me through step by step.

As any good teacher usually does, Cera showed me the key he had and how to craft it. He made it look really simple, but I could only assume that it wasn't as simple as he was making it out to be. I stayed quiet and nodded as he explained how to work the metal into shapes then watched as he made two more keys. "You make it look so easy." I said and I didn't bother trying to cover up how amazed I was.

It was my turn, though, and I concentrated. I used the magic that my position came with to seek out the ore under the ground and draw it to the surface and it was like pushing against a boulder and trying to get it to move. Sweat broke out across my neck and shoulders and I scrunched up my nose, but I kept concentrating until I had enough to make an imperfect key. It was crooked and the hole for the strap was an afterthought, but it had the same basic shape as the one Cera had made. Kind of. It fell to the ground at our hooves and I looked at it, frowning. "Its kinda ugly." I said, but that wasn't going to stop me. I tried again. My second key was still imperfect compared to Cera's, but it was notably better than the first. The one that followed that, while still not perfect, was still better than the first two. 

I stared down at my three ugly keys laying in the sand by Cera's perfect ones and I couldn't help but laugh. "They're so ugly." I said. "Are you sure they'll work?"



"."

Mother, make me
Make me a big tall tree
So I can shed my leaves and let it blow through me