the tempest of an unrelenting sea

The rumble was deep, rolling over the land. It drowned even the crashing sounds of the falls—though they were much depleted by Tallsun’s long and arduous heat. The fires had ravaged these herdlands, giving the militant woman a first true emotion of fear on the land. Fire did sweep the ocean floor. But here, with all this dry kindling, it had swept across the earth with a vengeance.

The ocean-borne woman did not approve. There were sudden, strong current of water that would sweep away those unwary Avians (stories used to keep wayward children controlled). But never something as ravaging as these fires had been.

So it was a strange relief that the cooler nights had given the seahorse. She was not fond of cold weather; her hairless, scaled hide gave her no protection from the winds that were beginning to whip through the mostly burned and barren herdlands. But at least this cold was not the raging flames of forest fires.

Her webbed hooves, stained with ash but now toughened against the earthen floor, padded slowly towards the source of the call. ”Children”? She was no one’s child any longer. Her parents were lost—her culture gone… Her plated ears laid back against her ridges as she happened upon a small gather of herd members.

Despite her efforts to join a herd and find a purpose, she found herself irritated at the sight of these earth (or sky, her unblinking gaze uneasily traveled over the wings gathered) bound beings. She was not like any of these equids. Never would she feel a kindred towards them.

Her surly thoughts made her gaze a glare as she looked to the God who had helped them destroy Vjanta, the evil tigress. Of all the gods, this was one she might come to trust (even worship) because of his deeds in the Isles. Except he had walled her off from her culture—at least, that was how she understood it.

So it was in testy silence that she waited for the reason for the summons. Her eyes found Darwin, a winged man she knew. She nodded briskly, bladed horn slicing through the air. And Agnodice, the woman who had healed her wounds, was given the barest of grins; though it did not come close to softening her fractious expression. Her tail flicked with a tell-tale rattle of her barbs.