i am a leaf on the wind

She doesn’t entirely know where she ends up. Like usual, she’d been wandering through the Deep Forest and somewhere in there it stopped being the forest she knows. She doesn’t know exactly when it happened, exactly what gave way into this other place. A labyrinth of a land, more towering green grasses and bamboo shoots than trees, but still feeling like a dense, strange place.
 
She keeps going though, knowing she has nothing better to do anyway, and not all that worried about getting lost. As long as she can see the sky, she can get back to the Edge. There are a lot of perks to flying, after all. And she can wander for days and still find her way back eventually. It’s a lot easier to find home when you can see far ahead, and when you can cover distance quickly.
 
It is beautiful here, though it is not one of the forests that she’s become so used to here. The rest of the Helovia still doesn’t feel like home. It’s more like an extended vacation. But the Deep Forest is beginning to feel like home. The Edge, maybe, will feel like home. She knows the forest there well enough, anyway, and maybe eventually she’ll know some of the other residents as well.
 
But for now, she stays in the maze. Half the day is gone already, and there’s no real point to heading home now. Which might not be true. Something could be happening, certainly, she just can’t bring herself to face it all. She enjoys having the excuse to leave. Enjoys pretending like this is all just a hideous nightmare. One of these days she’ll wake up, and she’ll be home (Morham, not here), and her family will still be alive and things will be okay. One day, this place won’t exist except as a memory of a dream.
 
So she keeps pretending. Keeps running from the Edge because knowing no one makes it easier to leave. Makes it easier to keep up this pity party she’s started, this nomadic lifestyle except with a constant place to rest her head at night. And today, she gets to be lost in a maze. What a great place to play pretend. 

watch how i soar.

lyanna

i am a leaf on the wind

At this point, Lyanna truthfully has no idea where she is, and only a vague sense of what direction she’s come from. There’s something freeing about the maze, like it can suck away every thought of the past and the future and actually just leave her in the present. She’s busy trying to figure out where she is, where she wants to go, how she might get out (assuming she doesn’t cheat), and she’s starting to have fun with it.
 
Somehow, thought of Corbin melt away. Worries for Adelene. Foolish girl, running off and hiding like she did. But here, she doesn’t live with their ghosts quite so much. Doesn’t live with her regrets and worries. Everything is so green, an emerald palace with walls built of bamboo, and though she has no idea how something like this naturally forms, there’s enough magic in Helovia that it sort of makes sense. Though she doubts it was put here for therapeutic purposes. She might very well be the first one who so enjoys getting so lost.
 
It’s not until a little fox with five tails comes dashing through the brush and then out again that she’s pulled fully back to Helovia. She shakes her head, tossing white and teal hair haphazardly on either side of her neck. Though her hair, so well trained from too many years a pampered Princess, slowing rights itself until it falls back all on one side. She actually sort of wishes it would just get messy, but she seems to be cursed to look forever prim and proper. Except the few various stains from painting on her wing, but those would probably fade eventually.
 
It’s only a few moments before a Hello rings out, and Lyanna turns to find the source. The voice seems nice enough, so she doesn’t worry much, though probably she should. She’s in the middle of nowhere with a stranger. But the voice belongs to a gray mare with a kind enough expression on her face, and Lyanna relaxes. “Hello,” she offers back, nodding her head and smiling. She turns her fully face the other, and notices the little fox at the heels of the mare. Ah, so that’s where he came from. She smiles at him at well, just in case he’s looking.
 
In truth, she’s rather surprised to find anyone else here. She figured by now she was hopelessly lost in some remote part of Helovia, but apparently she wasn’t the only one that took to wandering today. Though perhaps her new companion had wandered into this place purposefully, unlike Lyanna, who’d just got too distracted to notice what was going on around her. “I’m Lyanna,” she offers. “Would it be entirely ridiculous if I asked you what this place is?”  

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lyanna

i am a leaf on the wind

The little kitsune is adorable. All the companions she’s come across are adorable, honestly. The concept is still new to her, something she definitely did not have in Morham. Animals yes. Bonded companions? Definitely not. The idea intrigued her, and she wondered if she would ever find one of her own. And if so, what would it be? In truth, she wonders if a companion could fill even one tiny corner of heart where her family used to be. Not that she could ever replace her family, but perhaps, with time, she could fill some of the gaping wounds they left behind. 
 
She dips her head low, offering her muzzle to Hikari if he wanted, but not trying to startle the pup. She waits a moment to see what Hikari might do before lifting her head again and focusing her attention on the gray mare. “It’s a pleasure to meet you both,” she says, meaning it as she always does, as only a Princess probably can mean everything they say. That was her job, once. To look pretty, to have polite words, and to woo the world into her arms. She’d been good at it, when she needed to be. Now, she simply got to be herself, and sometimes she was still figuring out just who that was. “Oh, I don’t mind at all. Though I can see how perhaps, curiosity might not always be good.”
 
There’s a lot she doesn’t know about companions, and how that works. But she knows it’s a deep bond, and she can only imagine how protective someone needs to be over a companion so very small, like Hikari. If she’s not mistaken, a horse only ever gets one, and losing a companion might hurt as much – maybe even more – than losing one’s entire family.
 
Brisa is kind enough to answer her question, and Lyanna eyes the bamboo with a new curiosity. So it is, actually, a maze. How odd, and a little bit fun. More fun if she doesn’t cheat, but still, it’s nice not to worry about actually getting lost. Taking off in here would be an interested, rather ungraceful endeavor though. “It’s definitely unlike anything I’ve ever seen,” she admits. “And honestly, I was wandering in the Deep Forest, and I got far too lost in my own thoughts. At some point, I ended up here, and just figured I might as well keep going.” She laughs slightly, realizing this probably sounds ridiculous. But Lyanna has taken to being something of a vagrant. Yes, she has a home, but she does enjoy simply roaming Helovia (and not just because she spends far too much time wallowing in self-pity). 

watch how i soar.

lyanna

i am a leaf on the wind

Lyanna laughs as Brisa steps forward, tugging at one of the little kitsune’s five tails. Hikari goes spinning away, facing the gray mare once more. Lyanna is still, and probably always will be, fascinated and infatuated with the concept of a companion. It’s something, if she’s being honest, she thinks she would like to have. Something that would perhaps help fill in the spaces left behind by her family. Not replace, just someone that would remind her there’s a reason to live. She can imagine a little voice in her head yelling at her to snap out of it every time she let her mind wander too far back into the past. It would probably be good. That, or both her and her companion would be too depressed to be any fun at all.

 
Though in truth, Lyanna wouldn’t call herself depressed. She enjoys traveling and conversation and learning about the different herbs in Helovia and what they can do. She is sad, yes. But that doesn’t mean depressed. Thoughts of her family still slip in though, pieces of Helovia remind her too much of Morham. Someday, perhaps, those ghosts would fade. But she is beginning to live to learn with their memory, if nothing else.
 
“I’d love some company,” she says as Brisa asks if they can join. Lyanna is still amazed by the amount of polite horses she’s found in Helovia. Not that they have all been polite, mind you. Some were strange, with little to say and much to do. Some were downright rude. But mostly, she’d found welcoming arms in the Edge, she’d found Apollo. And Brisa seemed quite capable of having a polite conversation, something that reminded Lyanna of days spent in Morham, showing visiting dignitaries around. Their conversation was light and friendly, with no talk of business or hints of sorrowful pasts.
 
It was a nice break from everything, just to get lost in a maze with a mare that seemed pleasant and friendly. “The World’s Edge.” she offers in answer to Brisa’s question. It’s getting easier to remember that’s her home, and not Morham. Sometimes ‘Morham’ is on the tip of her tongue before she remembers. “Though only somewhat recently,” (still less than a year) “If you couldn’t tell by the fact I don’t even know where I am.” She laughs lightly, not afraid to laugh at her own expense a bit. It is amusing, after all.
 
“What is the Falls like? I’ve only see the landscape in the distance from the sky. I admit, it’s tempting to fly over. It looks lovely.” Not that she would ever actually go flying over someone else’s herd. She knows better than that, but still, she’ll admit that she would love to (the smile on her face should be enough to let Brisa know she’s hardly going to do it). 

watch how i soar.

lyanna

i am a leaf on the wind

Lyanna had never been likely to be particularly tall. The women in her family rarely were. Her lines came from the same few places, really. Morham and the surrounding kingdoms didn’t have quite the same immigration rate as Helovia seemed to. Sure, new horses came into the kingdoms around, and there were enough kingdoms to keep the bloodlines clean. But still, most of the horses in the area were similar enough that, after a time, they’d all started to look somewhat the same.

You wouldn’t find horses like Tembovu in Morham. You would find horses like Brisa and Lyanna. And for this reason, walking through such a beautiful (albeit also so unlikely) maze of bamboo and greenery, Lyanna feels at home in a way she hasn’t for a while. This is the life she knows how to lead. This life of pleasant small talk and not craning her neck to look up at someone.

Even if she is, technically, completely lost at the moment, she finds that this afternoon is quickly becoming rather pleasant. Thoughts of Morham slip in, but ones that make her smile slightly, thinking of afternoons spent with some of the neighboring princesses when they were visiting, walking the forests of Morham or the gardens of Romane. She could see Brisa fitting right into that life. Little does Lyanna know she is, in fact, talking to the Czarina of the Falls. Lyanna still doesn’t have much connection to the politics of Helovia yet though, not like in Morham. Though perhaps with her new standing in the Edge, that would change.

She ruffles her feathers slightly at Brisa’s comment that she probably knows the land better than she thinks. “Ah, yes, but it really does help when you can cheat your way around.” She laughs slightly. It was, really, a gift to have wings. They are the only reason she isn’t hopelessly lost in Helovia. Not that she can fly everywhere, but of course, those are the places she knows the least. “It seems to be a trend, horses moving herds in Helovia. Is it common, or is it just the horses I run into?” She’s not trying to be nosey, but rather, make conversation and perhaps learn something. She doesn’t know the history here, of wars or raids or anything else. All she knows is where she’s from, horses mostly stayed put.

The mention of the Falls brings a smile to Brisa’s face, and it’s clear she cares for her home. The Edge doesn’t make Lyanna smile quite like that. But it’s getting better. Getting closer to home. They have given her a rank and responsibilities, and these things help her feel like it really might be home. They also weigh her down with fear that she will fail. This isn’t the life she was groomed for, but she can learn. “Oh, that sounds beautiful. I would love to visit one day, if that would be okay. I’ve never seen a waterfall up close.” She passed plenty as she fled Morham, but she’d never stopped to enjoy the beauty or power of one before.

“What do you do in the Falls?” she adds, hoping she’s not asking too many questions. But Brisa seems kind, and willing to talk, and Lyanna sometimes can’t help the questions. There are always so many here, so much yet for her to learn. And so she asks.

watch how i soar.

lyanna