Gawen does not like the edge.

No, not The Edge. He does not like the edge. The cliff face that had given his herd its name. The evil, monstrous, terrifying, evil thing. Did he say evil?

Despite having been born practically on its precipice, Gawen holds no fond feelings for the bleached rock of the cliff face, nor the way the stone gives way if one stands too close to the cusp. It makes his already weak, awkward limbs tremble and shake with vertigo, and every time he ventures towards it it seems every other part of his body aside his hooves leans as far backward towards solid earth as physically conceivable. For such a clumsy, awkward boy, it seemed like a death sentence to even practice near the cliff much less on it.

Grumpily, Gawen kicked his umber hoof at a random pebble only to stumble and nearly fall, forcing a flush of embarrassment to his swirled cheeks as he cast his blues around nervously, hoping nobody had seen that. Why had he been born with wings, again? Mother and Father did not have them, after all. Not that the hawk knew that Tembovu was not his real father, as nobody had deigned to correct him. If Ultima could go for years without learning to fly or needing to, and if his parents had never been capable of flight, surely Gawen did not need to learn?

As Ultima shrieked her defiant, terrified rejection of Miss Aly's gentle repetition, Gawen sidle up to the pale dove with his own neck arched low as if hoping to avoid detection. He was firmly with Ultima on this one, knees already shaking again with the idea of jumping off a cliff. Surely those were drastic measures?

Oh if only the Edge had more hills to coast and glide down.

"Beetles," Gawen echoed in his tiny, childish voice, nodding wisely as if he had any idea what beetles were or why they were so detestable. If Ultima was using it as a point of reasoning, then Gawen would back her up on it. At least the quad-winged beauty was an adult and could walk away from the conversation, signifying its end, unlike the quiet, fumbling colt. But he happily stumble-skipped after the pale maiden, a boyish smile on his face as she beckoned him to her side. "'Kay!" he chirped, nearly tripping but catching himself and scuttling to join his flying partner.

There was a sizable boulder that was just rough enough to scale without issue (well, if you were anyone other than Gawen) and he went tottering up it, his legs and back tired with all the work they had been doing day after day. With a shaky jump he let his wings carry him back to the earth, easy enough to simply hang the useless things out to the side to catch the air. But as soon as he landed, he went flailing and crashed right back into the earth as was his prerogative. Whining, he lay slumped and defeated for a moment before huffing out a weary sigh and heaving himself back to his hooves to go join Ultima and try to cheer her on.

"Can do it, Tima," he said shyly, incapable of pronouncing the odd "Ult" sound of the beginning of her name without sounding like he was choking on something. Maybe she would have better luck with the landing than he did.