i am a leaf on the wind

The other mare is right. It’s a bit of a death wish, flying in winter. Her extremities go numb first – ears and nose and legs. Then slowly, the cold creeps in further, up her legs, across her face, bit by bit inching crawling spidery fingers toward her sides, her spine, her heart. She cannot bring herself to stop flying, despite the danger. Cannot spend more time without the wind than she already does now. Losing her family wasn’t enough. Losing the wind, the only thing she’d had left, had been like losing a leg. Worse, actually. It was worse.

At least in the sky she could pretend. In the sky, it was almost like she could call the wind to her again, could ask it to lift her up. And in the end, part of her didn’t really care if she froze to death up there. She still hadn’t found anything worth living for below.

She was trying. God, she was trying. But there was nothing here that made her want to stay. She only stayed because she had nowhere else to go. But the Edge, though she called it home, did not feel like home. Helovia still felt like a place she might have visited on a diplomatic visit. Sometimes, she woke up thinking she was still in Morham. In those blurry moments between sleep and wakefulness, she was at peace. It was a short lived thing, but she enjoyed those moments.

But she is good at smiling, good at pretending. That is the job of a (former) princess, and so she only grins slightly at the laugh that leaves Daetin’s lips, her eyes friendly, her posture easy. She’s spared some having to keep that conversation going though as the egg shifts slightly, pulling Daetin and her attention to it. The mare speaks again, admitting she’d just found it here.

At this point, already cold, Lyanna plops down on the ground, settling in and hoping the other mare doesn’t mind too much. What else is she going to do? Go back to the Edge and wander around aimlessly some more? It wasn’t high on her to do list, so she settles for being an uninvited guest instead. But she was starting to feel weird talking to a mare laying on the ground while she was standing up, so she’ll deal with the snow instead.

“I saw an egg like this once,” she says, remembering the rat man and his two eggs. One that was nothing, and one that a mare took with her. “There was some sort of companion in it, though I never found out exactly what.” She pauses, wondering if she’d ever see that mare again, wonder just exactly what had hatched from that egg. Probably, she’d never know. “Maybe this one doesn’t have a mother. Maybe it was meant for you.”

watch how i soar.

lyanna