I had not discovered my magic, though if I had been paying attention, I suppose I could have noted the way wilted plants turned their faces up happily to greet me sometimes. My focus was squandered often on other endeavors, such as walking with crooked legs. The limbs in question had been getting straighter these days, and I felt that perhaps they might be strong one day, just as Ophelia had suggested. Still, they were bowed to this day, where I stand idly by the shores of the great lake, my dual toned eyes watching the water lap at the red sand in quiet contempt for the bloody earth.

I was just sad that each moment was different from the rest, much like I had been the day I spoke with Ophelia at this very shore.

Today, it was not the princess of white that I would be meeting with, but the princess of lightning. I had not seen her, at first, and she likely would have noticed me before I took a glance in her direction. There was not a time I recall that I had seen a fellow foal, and I was quite taken aback when my blue face turned to see the sight of a blue girl, striped with markings that mirrored a stormy sky. I tilt my head, a swish of silver mane floating downward toward the earth, pulled by gravity and the gentle hands of the wind.

My excitement increases tenfold as I note the wings on the back of her body, much like my own limbs which fold and grow, feathered and beautiful. My mother had finally explained to me that I was not the same as her, but I had already guessed that. There were no wings sprouting from her back, and her horn fell delicately in the center of her forehead. It was elegant and not bulky like my own curved horns, and we were obviously crafted from a different palette of colors. There was little that tied my body to my mother's, except for our fair colored hair and stripped markings on our legs. The touch of red in the center of my eyes also bespoke of our relation, perhaps a family trait since Ophelia also had a crimson eye.

The same excitement dies swiftly, though, as I realize with a jolt of nervousness that this is not a colt as I am, but a filly. Females had often made me nervous, and I think the only ones I had ever spoken a word to are mother and Ophelia. So, instead of walking up to the other foal, I just stare, horrified that she may notice me and speak, and that I would be too dumbfounded to utter a single syllable.