i am a leaf on the wind

She always comes back here. Not always stopping, but flying by more times than she can count, comfort radiating from the trees to her place in the sky. Sometimes she stops, dipping through a break in the branches to wander on the ground, feet steady and sure on the rough, rooted earth. Once, this place was strange and unknown to her, but quickly, it is becoming a second home. Or perhaps, it is simply becoming home.
 
Home in a way the Edge is not. She knows the forest there well, but she still feels like a stranger in her own land. Like a beggar on the door of someone’s home. They were all kind and the herd quite tightknit. Very much a family. And of course, therein was the problem. They were kind enough to welcome her in, but no one seemed to know just where it was she did fit. Herself included. She cannot blame them, but rather herself.
 
Instead of trying, she often takes to the sky. It is home in the clouds with the wind beneath her wings, the weather finally turning warming, making flight all the more inviting. She often heads to the Threshold, a place where she can at least serve a purpose. But sometimes she simply soars over Helovia, skirting close to the Throat and wondering what life would have been like if she chose that path. Flying low over the trees of the Deep Forest, teal eyes looking for a familiar face. Either his, or his cat’s.
 
She has yet to see either of them. Perhaps because he has not come back since, or perhaps because they simply come at different times. Perhaps he is avoiding her, perhaps seeking her in his own spare time. Perhaps none of these things, and he never thinks on her at all. Not that she dwells on him, but rather, that he is a memory in which she felt she might actually find a life in Helovia. A life after Morham. But he is quickly becoming nothing but that memory.
 
She lands on the edge of the forest today, moving through the trees toward the pool where he’d taken her. His gift, a bright red ruby, glimmers in the few rays of sunshine through the leaves from it’s place against her chest, held there by a delicate gold chain. She feels a little more like her old self with another piece of jewelry on, a little bit more like the girl that used to be decked in precious metals and stones.
 
Now, her jewelry was simply a collection of memories. An earring the only thing she could not loose from herself before she’d fled her home. A necklace that still gave her some hope for a new life. Was this what she’s destined to become? A collection of jewelry tied to memories of a life that was never lived?
 
No.
 
But then again, she does not know how to change it. So instead, she makes her way to the pool, ghosts of memories flickering around her. Memories that belong here, and memories that do not. And for once, she lets herself fall into them. 

watch how i soar.

lyanna

i am a leaf on the wind

She always wanted to know what stories the trees could tell. They lived so long, saw so much, and much have so much to say. Once, she could hear the whispers of the wind in the trees, and wondered if perhaps the wind and the trees were conversing. She’d never heard words necessarily, or full sentences, but could sometimes get flashes of emotion. Now, with her powers stripped, her imagination is the only thing that she can hear when the breeze rustles in the trees. But still, she likes to come up with stories. Things these trees might know based on the scars on their trunks, the shape of their branches, the way they reach for the sun.

The forest has always been her favorite place, when not in the sky. It is comfortable, the trees like sentries against danger, the branches like a friends pat on the back. She’s so lost in her thoughts that she doesn’t even notice him at first. She’s too busy thinking about Apollo, thinking about her brother, about her family. The rubies in the bottom on the pool remind her of her families blood (she likes to imagine it spilled out of them like rubies, it is an easier vision to stomach), and of the kindness Apollo had shown her so early in her time here.

What an odd combination of memories. Murder and kindness together. Death alone perhaps could be kind, but her family’s murder was far from it. She shakes her head, a breeze bringing with it a slightly new scent, finally ripping her from her thoughts. Stupid, she thinks. This is how bad things happen, when you aren’t paying attention. It’s Corbin’s voice that chides her; her brother often chided her for getting lost in her thoughts.

She looks up only to find that the newcomer is also simply staring back, like neither one of them had really expected to find anyone else. Her nerves ease slightly, though he is still taller than her, and perhaps stronger. But mostly, she’s struck by his appearance, like someone stretched a cloth tight across his bones. He shimmers slightly where the sun hits him, looking rather like the wind could blow him away. Though she suspects that’s not really the case at all. He’s different than anything she’s seen here so far, though beautiful in a very delicate way. Which she finds a strange way to describe a male, but still, there’s no other words for it.

“Hello,” she offers, voice friendly and light, having decided it’s probably unlikely he means her any harm. “I’m Lyanna.”

watch how i soar.

lyanna

i am a leaf on the wind

This is perhaps the first interaction she’s had in Helovia in which the other equine wasn’t overtly kind and helpful. She should be put off by it, she thinks, but instead something like relief finds her. It is a relief to find someone who doesn’t simply smile and offer her help. But why? Because it makes no sense that she should find relief in his wariness. 
 
Because he feels more real than many that she’s met (though not Apollo, who’s kindness seemed even more genuine than her own). Because for once, she doesn’t feel like someone is treating her like a child (here, she is a child in the sense she knows almost nothing). Because for once, life feels like it might actually be real.
 
Lyanna’s grown too used to the smiles and pleasantries whenever she’s around. Like the members of the Edge don’t know what else to do with her. Like she’s got some sign around her neck that says Handle with care. But it’s not like she doesn’t catch some of the looks, the moments of tense silence. She’s not blind or stupid. She simply doesn’t have any idea what those things might mean.
 
It takes him a moment to prick his ears back up, to step forward rather than looking like he’s about to flee. She waits patiently, ready to move should he attack, but not particularly worried either. He cannot follow her into the sky (at least, not so far as she can tell). “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” she says, storing his name away for later, should there ever be a later. She’s come across many strangers here. No one seems to become more than that.
 
Then he asks a question, and she thinks for a moment, cocking her head just slightly as she sifts through the memories. Finally, she shakes her head slightly, having come up with nothing. She’s not even seen one of the dragon companions around Helovia yet. “No, not that I can recall.” Should I?, she thinks. But then again, she knows nothing. “Are they from here?” she asks instead. A close enough question, though less direct.  She didn't feel like giving away how little she really knew around here. At least, not entirely. 

watch how i soar.

lyanna

i am a leaf on the wind

He is an interesting creature, and she doesn’t entirely know what to make of him. Not that this is the first time she’s been met with an extra glance at her wings (sometimes in admiration, sometimes in hesitation, sometimes with no meaning at all). But she isn’t entirely sure if that’s his point here, or something else entirely. Is it because she has wings generally that he asks? Is it because he fears she may be one of them? Or simply because he fears they might be here?

But then he says it is too wet and low for them here, and she dashes away the last option. He continues on, mentioning half a world away, and her heart skips a beat as it always does. Morham was half a world away, and it felt like a lifetime away now too. Oh, how she missed home. Missed her forest and her family and her things.

Here, she was nothing. Here, she was no one. And those things would be okay, if only she had some small corner to call her own, but she didn’t even have that. The Deep Forest was the closest she had managed to come to that. She’s tripping down that rabbit hole again, nearly missing his next words, when they are eaters of flesh slips from his lips and snags her back it reality. “Oh,” she says, an answer so genuine it would be hard to think she’d lied about not knowing them.  

Was he talking about real dragons? Or horses with their wings, and it seems, apparently their appetite? That’s not a question she can bring herself to ask though, and thankfully, he’s already moved on, talking of the trees, a topic she’s far more comfortable with. “In harmony,” she says, turning her eyes to the ground until she finds the roots of two trees tangled together, and she points a hoof in that direction. “I find it rather beautiful,” she admits, reaching a wing out to brush against a nearby tree.

“Though I love the sky as well.” And here she stretches both wings, the teal feathers brushing bark and low-hanging limbs as she does. Not that she could take off from here, but rather as explanation for her comments. “Do you prefer more open lands then?”

watch how i soar.

lyanna

i am a leaf on the wind

The forest depends on how one looks at it. It is possible to see anger in the way the roots tangle together and snarl through the earth. It is possible to see a fight for space in the odd angles of the tree trunks, each looking for its own place in the sky. But it also possible to see roots entwined together, sharing space with the dirt and the rocks and the grass that all call earth their home. It is possible to see trees all reaching for the same sky, branches lifting one another up.

It is possible to believe there is good in this world. In this place that reminds her daily of all the things she has lost. There is beauty in the red, ruby pool near her feet; not just a grisly reminder of her brother’s blood. There is peace in the sunlight that filters through the tree branches in windows to the heavens, not just claustrophobia in the darkness that presses in.

If she does not see the good in the world, she would have no reason left to live at all. It is the only way for her to keep going. It is the only way it doesn’t all just feel like it’s gone to hell. Like there is no coming back.

There may be no coming back, but she doesn’t know for sure yet. She could always try the Throat. Sometimes she still wonders if perhaps, simply, the Edge isn’t her home. But she cannot bring herself to leave it either. Not yet. 

His eyes snap back to her as she unfurls her wings, and for a moment, she feels strangely like herself. She has never needed, or even really wanted, attention. But she is used to it, and for a moment, this reminds her of what she used to be. Not some invisible creature with nothing to offer, but rather, something grand. Something with the ability to soar above the ground, to draw eyes as she moved. It’s a fleeting thought, but it’s enough to pull her head out of the rabbit hole of ghosts. 

He tells her of his home before this, and she listens raptly, both ears turned toward him. What he describes is rather like what she thinks that Throat might look like, not that she knows for sure. She’s never been so brazen as to fly over other herd lands, though she’s come close to the border. “It sounds like a lovely place,” she offers, not asking why he left. She doesn’t want to have to offer the answer to that in return. She’s only been asked once in Helovia, and while she will answer, she’d prefer not to. 
 
“There are places more like that here too. I can show you, if you want. But perhaps for now,” she nods her head a bit off to her left, away from the pool. She turns to lead him away just slightly, glancing back to see if he’s even following. There’s a slight clearing in the trees. Nothing all that large, nothing all that impressive, but just a little less dense. 

watch how i soar.

lyanna

i am a leaf on the wind

Somehow, everyone she has met feel like natives, like they belong. Even if they aren’t from here originally, they belong now, and that’s enough. They belong, unlike her, and the otherness of own person screams at her, cruel and incessant. And so she keeps leaving the Edge, pushing herself further and further from the others that she’s trying to be like. A good plan, clearly. Yet she cannot bring herself to stop. Cannot bring herself to stop wondering what the Throat might be like. Would it be better? Would it be the family she’s looking for?

Would it be nothing at all? 

She’s afraid to find out, afraid to leave what little she’s managed to claim as her own. 

Seanan though, belongs almost as little as she does. And though he seems wary and uncertain of her, she cannot help but like him, cannot help but want to keep him around. Just a reminder that she isn’t the only one. It is almost cruel. It is certainly selfish. But perhaps she can help him in some small way, and perhaps that’s enough.

He follows, and as they come to the small clearing, he seems to change just slightly. Not just appearance (though he shimmers and his eyes turn lavender). But he seems to grow as well – steps longer, feet kicking – and she wonders if he simply feels more confident in the open space. Free in a way he simply cannot in the trees. For her, the trees are friends, lovers. They only thing she has. For him, perhaps they are a prison.

His response is a beautiful one, holding notes of adventure beneath the words. She admires that. She, however, keeps seeking out the known. Keeps trying to pretend that this life isn’t so terribly different than her old one. Ah, but it is different. Maybe she should seek out the new. Maybe she should learn something from him.

Maybe, maybe, maybe. But fear still gnaws at her gut, and she cannot imagine acting. He asks of her own home, and with her thoughts already half in Morham (as they always are), she doesn’t find it hard to answer. “Like the Threshold, actually. Some of it, anyway. Meadows and forests. The forests were more like the Threshold, the trees less dense than here with far more sun. And then beautiful, rolling green meadows covered in flowers.” It was beautiful, but it was no longer hers. It was only her dream now.
 
“What kind of things are you looking for, then? Or simply wherever your legs take you?” Perhaps she should have done that. Perhaps she still should. Just go, and see where she lands. 

watch how i soar.

lyanna

i am a leaf on the wind

The sky always feels like a constant presence to her. It is perhaps odd that she doesn’t get particularly claustrophobic. For loving the sky and the wind and the air so much, it would make sense that small, dark places would terrify her. But she can always feel the sky. Moreso, really, she can feel the wind, and she knows it will always carry her to where she needs to go. Even without her powers, the wind is still her friend. She can no longer speaks its language, but it still caresses her sides and plays with her hair and comes when she needs it most. Between the wind and the trees, she has a lot of a friends, but they are rather silent ones. Sometimes conversation is a necessary thing.

But she doesn’t find it shocking that Seanan needs to see the sky, needs that open space. It does make sense. She probably should be like him. “It was,” she says, using the past tense in relation to her home without even thinking about it. Which isn’t even right. The place still stands, it’s still beautiful. It just isn’t hers anymore. She’ll never be able to go back.
 
Her question though clearly hits a nerve, and she regrets asking it. She’s debating if she can give him an easy way out of answering, just a simple “oh, nevermind” maybe. But then he answers, and while it’s not a detailed answer, it sounds honest. But it’s also obvious this is something he does not want to talk about, and she can understand that, so she does not pry. “Ah,” she says quietly, letting the topic drop at that.
 
Instead, she tries to come up with something new to talk about, though she’s not sure entirely where to steer the conversation too. “Are there any questions you have about Helovia? I’ll do my best to answer, though I don’t know all that much yet. I’m good with directions, at least.” She’d spent enough time flying over the place, she should at the very least be able to help out with that much. If he needed directions, that is. 

watch how i soar.

lyanna

i am a leaf on the wind

She probably wouldn’t have cared had he chosen to go for a nice roll. She might have laughed, a bit. Maybe she would have even joined him. Probably not, because somewhere in the back of her head she’d only hear her mother chiding her for getting dirty. But maybe. Because in the end, her mother was dead, and it didn’t matter if Lyanna was dirty anymore. Though old habits die hard, and she’s still pretty clean. Except for the paint stain on her wing from berry painting, but that was beginning to fade. She was vaguely tempted to go mash more berries just to stain herself. It was sort of fun.

He closes the distance between the two of them, leaving a polite space left, but something more intimate than the conversation they’d been having. She’s a little flattered, hoping that she’s been kind enough to warrant the newfound trust. His next question is a hard one though, and she has to think about it. “I’ve not been here that long,” she admits.

She imagines the Edge and the dragon statue that marks their meeting place. “I believe each herdland has its own, smaller heart. Things that are the most precious to them.” She’s not sure what that would be for each herd yet, and likely she’ll never know for all of them. It’s not like she’s going to live in every one of them in her lifetime. The Edge, for now, was enough. Perhaps one day the Throat. Perhaps not. “The center of Helovia is Thistle Meadow. Everything else surrounds it in one way or another. But perhaps, the real heart, is the home of the gods. They seem to be everything here, from what I can tell.”

She’s not sure how true that really is. No one requires that she worships the Mood Goddess, but the Goddess still decides her fate in the Edge. The only way she doesn’t answer to a specific God is to stay an outcast, but even then, the Gods still dictate the events in Helovia. At least, that’s what she thinks. But then again, Morham never had Gods. It’s still a learning curve for her too.

watch how i soar.

lyanna

i am a leaf on the wind

He seems more interested in what she says at the mention of the gods. A flick of the ear, more intensity in his questions. But she couldn’t say why, and nor did she think much of it. The concept of gods was one that still intrigued her. She’d come from a land with none, though here, she gathered they were rather integral and present in the lives of the horses of Helovia (as present as gods ever were, anyway). She’d had no overwhelming desire to seek them out, though she knew that some did. To seek magic or companions, bits of information of the future.

The gods weren’t really her business here. She’d never met one. Her job did not require she spend any time with them. Perhaps, in time, that would change. But hardly now, and perhaps never. It wasn’t a thought that saddened her though. The idea of gods, of someone controlling her life, was still something she hadn’t even wrapped her head around.

“The Veins of the God,” she says, giving him the name of the place. She’s flown near, though never totally over. It doesn’t seem polite. Flying there would be like flying over a herd she did not belong to. “If you go south west through Thistle Meadow, and follow the river all the way to the ocean, you’ll find the peninsula that they call home. They don’t appear though except to those that have earned it, from what I gather.” She doesn’t have much more information than that. She only knows she’s hardly earned it.

“Just to the east of the river there, you’ll also find the Heart Caves. The literal heart of Helovia, a rather hard to miss fire in the middle of a large hole in the earth. But there are caves nearby, with a lot of history on some of the walls. Perhaps it will be interesting as well.” She falls silent, figuring that’s far more than he asked for, and therefore enough.

watch how i soar.

lyanna