Everything hurts all the time.

Gawen will come to understand that this is simply how the world is, both physically and metaphorically, but he has been introduced to it far too soon. It is not because he is born unloved, oh no no no. Gawen is deeply loved and adored by his family, as small as it may be.

No, the reason why Gawen's body always aches is because he is clumsy.

Truly, clumsy is not even an adequate word for how horrifyingly uncoordinated the poor child is. He can't walk ten paces without falling flat on his face most days, and the wings certainly do not aid in that endeavor. He has acquired sprained limbs, sore shoulders, bent feathers, and headaches. Of course it doesn't stop the sprightly child, who, like all children, has an insatiable curiosity about the world. He doesn't know a world where he is not constantly kissing the earth, so he is not one to mope about more than the occasional wound necessitates.

Still, fate has a funny way of playing little tricks on those in need of guidance, and it seems Gawen's first encounter with her is today.

Orangemoon is slick with frost and chill, and the young hawk is not familiar with the terrain. One misstep and a familiar tumble turns into a terrible fall, and he goes crashing to the earth in a stunned heap of feathers. For a moment the world is still as if holding its breath for the young child's response. It's an entirely predictable reaction, what occurs. Gawen slips to his side, kicking his foreleg out into view, and feels immediately nauseous as he sees the long strip of missing skin and fresh blood. The pain hits more intensely then, and the colt sucks in a deep, shaking breath.

And begins to wail.

** Gawen wants to be a healer someday, so he needs to be introduced to the art! Whoever wants to come help him is free to, and anyone else as well!

so i listen to the    wind for an answer

She’d been in the gardens today, taking stock of everything that was growing and trying to figure out what else they could use and what hadn’t survived the heat of Tallsun. Thankfully, the weather had finally turned cooler, though the Edge was buffeted with rather intense winds. She finds she doesn’t mind this so much, even though they wings rip various feathers loose and she cannot, as she once could have, slow or redirect the galls. She has been avoiding flying from the cliff though, with the wind so unpredictable. She was a good flyer, certainly, but that didn’t mean she was immune to getting slammed into the cliff face by an unexpected wind.

She’s about to grab a few jars and heads out to pick some more herbs for the garden when she hears a wail on the wind. Immediately her head shoots up, ears flicking forward to figure out where the sound is coming from. It sounds like the cry of a child, though she cannot be certain from so far away. But she knows it’s a sound that means pain – be it physical or emotional pain she also cannot say, but that detail doesn’t matter. She follows the sound, picking up a canter and keeping her wings tucked tightly to the side to prevent the winds from snagging at them.

She finds a familiar, small heap of brown and white soon enough. As she gets closer, his leg is obviously injured. Gawen is on his side, leg held out in front of him in the way a horse only does when injured. She doesn’t slow to a stop until she’s nearly on top of the boy, spreading her wings briefly to come to a quick halt, and then tucking her wings away. “Hi Gawen, I’m Lyanna,” she says quietly, figuring the boy likely doesn’t remember her. They only met when he was a newborn, after all. How quickly they grow. “I’m here to help. Just stay still, this might look weird, but it won’t hurt.”

She tugs at the now familiar magic that sits inside her, calling on the wind and dark mist. The grass stirs, the wind that brings the mist with it really just a gentle breeze. The mist is almost like shadows, something alive, and it rolls over the boy, concentrating on his leg. Slowly, the skin begins to regrow, stitching itself back together and hiding the blood beneath. They’ll have to wash away whatever blood has dried on his skin, but when the mist finally disappears, his leg looks almost as good as new. The skin on his leg is obviously new, and she suspect it’s probably tender still, but as a whole, it’s certainly an improvement. “How do you feel?”

lyanna

The hawk doesn't comprehend the power of a child's cry. Through every species, through years of evolution, it has remained that a newborn's wail will always draw attention. It provokes a response, a primordial reaction that redirects and inspires. While also common in drawing predators their way, children are most often discovered by their various kin be it herd, pack, or flock. These profound thoughts are far from Gawen's mental grasp, his world narrowing down to nothing but the expression of pain along his nervous system. His eyes are swallowed by glistening tears, the world around him muddled and bleary, tiny chest heaving with each dramatic breath. Because of that, he is understandably startled when Lyanna comes hurtling from seemingly nowhere to appear before him in a shower of feathers and disturbed wind.

Like all children, Gawen is startled into silence by her arrival, predicament temporarily forgotten in favor of shock. The fact that she knows his name isn't suspicious to the child, and as he begins breathing her scent comes forth to him. And while he may not remember his birth very well, Gawen is very well-connected to his instincts, to the natural ebb and flow of energy in himself and the resonating response of the earth. His lower lip trembles but he smiles tearily at Lyanna because he knows her. Her scent is a familiar one, faint memories that he cannot discern cementing his relationship with her. "'Anna," he parrots shakily, having the same trouble with her name as with Ultima's.

Lyanna's words are still mostly gibberish in their meaning, because Gawen is scarcely a few months old. But she says it in a nice, gentle tone, so Gawen bobs his head in an exaggerated display of promised obedience and sniffles while holding still.

That's when something amazing happens.

Mist converges upon his injured limb, and an odd sensation spreads across the area of the wound. Like when he sleeps too long and gets pins and needles. The boy stares agog as the writhing mists conceal his leg, the pain receding like it has been dipped in a blissfully cool stream. As the clouds depart, he's left staring at his unblemished foreleg, eyes wider than they've ever been. It's still sore, of course, and coated in dried blood. But it's healed.

Gawen's head whips towards Lyanna.

"How?" It's breathed across his lips, still stunned by the power she had displayed. Already thoughts are forming vaguely in his mind, excitement building. A path slowly defining itself.

so i listen to the    wind for an answer

She can’t help the smile that comes to her face at his teary smile, the way he misses half her name. It’s cute though. Anna, she calls him. No one else had never shortened her name, truthfully. Not Corbin, not Adelene. She’d always been Lyanna. Prim and proper Lyanna. Destined to marry into some herd, to be the thread that held an alliance together (so precarious, so easy to snap). She’d had to be perfect, because nothing less would do. Maybe that’s why she had taken to the forest so often, because the trees did not judge her. They didn’t care if she tripped on a root, or said the wrong thing. The trees brushes her back tenderly no matter what, sheltered her no matter what.

Here though, she spent so much less time in the trees. Here, she didn’t have to know everything and didn’t have to be perfect. Here, Anna fits her perfectly. Here, a child’s care is in her hands, and her job is equally important as it was before, but it’s so different as well. A whole herd was in her care (along with Tilney and Evangeline, that goodness for both of them).

Besides, it simply melts her heart how he can’t quite say her name. The same way she feels his pain and every instinct screams to help him, even if she couldn’t simply summon the wind to heal him. She’d be here somehow, doing whatever she could.

He lays still on the ground as the wind and mist roll over him, healing the gash that runs down his legs. His reaction is priceless, just in case she didn’t like the boy already. His head whips in her direction, his question direct and to the point. “It’s magic given to the Moon Doctors here in the Edge,” she says, trying to leave out all the finer details that probably weren’t that interesting. “Though there’s many ways to heal and help with pain that don’t require magic,” she adds. She still thinks of dragging a small branch through the Threshold for a stallion in pain, before she’d had the power she does now. Like a dog, but it’d been the right thing to do. Even if she’d look entirely ridiculous doing it.

lyanna

Lyanna's smile is familiar to Gawen. She is like his incidental guardian, and he sees her almost more often than his own mother most days. Wherever he goes, she happens to be there, always with a warm smile for him and a patient ear. Gawen doesn't understand the complexity of blood relations, all he knows is that whenever he is in trouble or whenever he is alone, she will be there. And every time he grows more and more fond of her, and so he calms his tears from the moment she arrives, her presence alone soothing the pain of his trembling heart.

But the magic is what truly eases the physical pain away, and the gobsmacked child moves his eyes between the healed - if bloodied - limb and Lyanna's blue eyes as if demanding a correlation to appear physically before his eyes. She presents him kindly with the information he - a bit disrespectfully - asks of her, and while some of her words are still gibberish that he doesn't fully understand, he clings to one word.

Magic.

The colt jumps to his hooves unsteadily, staring in awe at his sore but repaired limb and how it holds his weight effortlessly. And then she says something even more interesting. That he does not need this 'magic' to heal in the way that she has just healed him, and the boy is so overcome with excitement that a little foal-squeal echoes in his throat. Fluffy wings shudder and beat against his sides, gangly legs dancing as he bounces in front of Lyanna.

"Wanna know how!" he declares immediately, squeaky little voice and sparkling eyes aimed right at the beautiful Doctor, tiny tail waving like an excited puppy behind him. "Wanna help like Anna," he squeaks firmly, the biggest grin he'd ever shown in his lifetime beaming up at the healer. Gawen was already an eager pupil, wanting to start right then, unaware of the fact that Lyanna might actually have other things to do than entertain him.

He wanted to be just like her.

Tin had gone out looking for the boy. Although the Specter had a duty to her herd, she also had a duty to her son. Sometimes her position made it difficult to always be home, but when she was Raeden looked forward to spending the time with Gawen. Teal eyes shifted through the woods and the small deer was no longer in her sight. Tin had ventured pretty far into the edge before finally finding the small clumsy boy. Ornate antlers towered over the bush, and green eyes soon locked on to the boy. With a flash Raeden got the image of where he was at, and her heart raced. Why was the moon doctor there? Hopefully her clumsy son was not hurt in any way.

Cream hooves quickened to a trot as the mare weaved in and out of the trees. Long tresses of her mane and tail were wind swept behind her and floating in the calm air around her. Teal eyes widened as she finally was there with her son. The fresh skin on his leg caught her attention the second she got closer to him. Reaching down with a warm honey colored muzzle she nickered, and her maw rubbed over his soft fur. "Are you okay Gawen? " Teal eyes flashed to the moon doctor and a bright smile came from her maw. "Thank you.... Sometimes he can get into some trouble when it comes to balancing."

 

"talk talk talk"

so i listen to the    wind for an answer

He is a presence she never expected to love quite as much as she does. Not in the way Raeden loves him, certainly – there’s no comparing that sort of bond or the sort of love a parent has for their child – but more than as another member of the Edge that she’s simply taking care of. His tears tugs at her heart, even though she knows they are entirely normal and, in this particular instance, quite warranted. But she wants to comfort him, wants to see that smile and that child-like excitement. His joy is infectious, and she finds it impossible not to want to bring him all the joy she possibly can.

As the mist and the wind die away, his awe is obvious. He gets to his feel quickly, and she’s glad to see that he’s able to stand easily. There’s also the possibility that the magic left a few things to mend underneath the skin as well. It shouldn’t, but it’s still a somewhat new power to her, and she’s never completely sure she wields it as effectively as she could. But perhaps she does, because he seems relatively fine beside the scar on his leg, and the blood that they need to wash away.

His excitement washes over him, like he’s forgotten about the large chunk of skin that was very recently missing from his leg. Instead he bounces around, eager to learn and help. Lyanna’s smile widens, a twinkle in her teal eyes. “I’d love to show you,” she says. Tilney has Ultima for a student, Evangaline has her warrior girl, and Lyanna? Well, now it seems Lyanna has Gawen.

Before she can say anything else, Raeden joins though. Lyanna’s not surprised – mother’s never are far away. She gives the mare a nod and a smile. She doesn’t answer for Gawen, letting him answer his mother’s question himself. After all, it’s the only way he can learn. She never did understand parents that answered for their children. Elaborating, yes. But not the initial answer. “Think nothing of it,” she says easily, meaning it. Yes, it’s her job to keep the herd healthy and as safe as she can, but she would never leave a child in pain. She’d want the same if she ever had children. The Edge is it’s own family – rather extended and large – but still.

“It’s seems Gawen might have an interest in healing, though. If you’d both like, perhaps a trip to the gardens? And then I’ll give you some mother and son time without an herb lesson,” she says with a laugh. She’s sure Raeden wants to see her son while she’s here – the mare, like Lyanna, has a job to perform for the herd as well, and only so much free time. But still, if Gawen wants to learn about healing, Lyanna wants to give him a little taste before she departs.

lyanna