She’s spent a bit of time getting to know the Basin, but there’s much of Helovia she has get to explore. So today, having no responsibilities in the Basin currently anyway, she sets off. There’s no plan. It’s not like she knows where she’s going to make a plan. No, she simply walks out of the Basin (because, after Beloved giggling story she assumes walking is preferred to flying there) and then, only after she’s left the mangled guards behind, does she take to the sky.

She’s not about to explore on foot. It’s easier to see from the sky, easier to keep herself oriented to just how to get back to this place she’s, at least temporarily, calling home. It’s hard to convince herself of home. It is not the Chamber she grew up in (that land is long gone, destroyed by the magic that built it in the first place). To be fair, she’s fine with it not being the Chamber. That was sort of the whole point of her leaving in the first place. She needed her own life, out of the shadow of her mother’s legacy. Not that she still wasn’t very much her mother’s daughter, she was, but no one where would know though.

She says temporarily only because she’d grown used to wandering from place to place. It was wearying, sometimes, but she had liked it as well. She is not sure if the Basin, or Helovia even, will hold her. Or will her legs start to itch again, her wings start to flutter, with the need to see the world? She wants the best of both – a place to call home with familiar faces, and the ability to simply travel and see it all. She cannot have both.

The sight of a blood red waterfall catches her attention. She has not actually made it all that far from the Basin, but the waterfall intrigues her. The trees are dense here, and she’s forced to land somewhat outside the place of interest. But she does, walking into the forest which is so dense light barely permeates through the trees. What little light does get through is tinged red like the rest of this place. She rather likes it, finds the trees and the darkness familiar. Not unlike the pine forests of her old home, though they had not been red.

She makes her way toward the sound of the crashing waterfall, getting turned around and lost a handful of times before she finally finds the red pool. Rubies glimmer in the bottom of it, looking deceptively close. Thankfully, Weaver isn’t much of a girl for jewelry (not that she doesn’t enjoy it, but she’s not about to work hard for useless trinkets – those should just be given to her), so the temptation to dive for one doesn’t strike.

But her day is not without its own sort of treasure hunt. Sometime white catches her attention. It is almost pink in this light, but it’s clear enough that the object should be white. It is smooth and egg shaped. She makes her way over to the egg, which sits near the water. In truth, she doesn’t entirely know what to do with it. The day is warm, and the egg sits nestled in some grasses, so she figures it’s perfectly fine where it is.

Did the mother abandon it? This seems like such a strange place for a nest though; unlikely at best that any normal animal had set up camp here and then just disappeared. They would have picked a safer location. She studies the egg some more, and before long, a loud crack sounds. There’s a split in the egg, and the sound of pecking from inside. Soon, a black beak pokes it way through the shell, dislodging more and more of the surrounding egg.
It’s a raven.

“You little shit,” she says to the raven. It is not, in truth, very likely to be her raven. Her raven had been her mother’s magic, ripped from her when she’d crossed into Helovia. But she doesn’t really care, because almost instantly, he feels, like her raven. And it is enough. In fact, it is better than before. His eyes are familiar and shifting, but they lack her mother’s watchful gaze. He feels like her conspirator now, and not her guard.

She grins at the little bird, swearing recognition flashes through him, though in truth, she’s probably making that up. Whatever. In truth, she has no idea how a companion works. Not really. Hers was her watchdog, nothing more. Here, they seemed like something different. She’d seen a few around, but hadn’t asked much about it. Obviously, she would have to. For now though, she drops her head toward the little bird, and he hops rather haphazardly into her head and nestles between her horns. “You’re moving to my back when you grow up,” she says, missing the familiar weight of her old raven there. But for now, since this new Raven was tiny and young, he was safer in her horns.

- weaver -