Plumes envelope the Edge. Sunrise adds a bright, gold tinge to the mists. The vapor embodies a heavy blanket, one that is ingested with every breath, consumed with every yawn. You are lost, and you are nothing in this vast obscure expanse. Like the stars that take the sky at night, there is an eternity that awaits you to be discovered. Planets embody the faces you have never acquainted yourself with; their voices alight with the various pitches and tones that filter through your ears. Yearning for their company, and simultaneously revolted by the dry and inane purpose you serve.

You serve them and you do not know them. Do not know what you have given them, to keep them safe. If love doesn’t tie you to them, than what does?
 
Purpose?
 
With a soft sigh, Ru roams the boarders. A cool chill interrupts her thoughts, allowing the glass spikes to glitter with the parting mists to her left. She eyes the edges of their spires, leering, cold and horribly clinical underneath the blanket of cover. They remind her of nightmares, of monstrous sea urchins lurching to prick and spike through their opponents without a second thought. They have no conscious or soul, merely tools, merely vacant vessels that stand on guard.
 
Deadly and beautiful, too, because as the sun continues to rise they glitter and refract in a glittering array of soft peaches and hot orange; before the mists filter back into their pockets and erase its beauty. Reducing the crystal edges to dull, intimidating structures that pile ominously beside her. Nearly hidden, nearly lost and forgotten.
 
She lets out a grunt. Annoyance clouds her mind briefly, for being denied the sky on this patrol. And extends her wings to give the surrounding air a few drags. The mists swirl, briefly opening up, but the humidity is greedy and it clings and rolls forward. Entrapping the Pegasus in the Edge’s formidable, heavy cloak.
 
That’s when the lights appear, when the annoyance catches on to the greater problems arising in her soul. The illuminating lines that finally emerge ahead of Ru, emit their own hum as they crack in and out of existence.
 
Her sooty limbs stop their prowl, her eyes taking in these bizarre manifestations. As the initial frustration ebbs, they all seem to disperse. She’d felt something just then, before the lights appeared. Like an old, uncontaminated piece of herself lodged between the layers of experiences stacked above it.
 
A light, fluttering excitement caught her breath. Uncertain if that piece meant anything to her now. The warrior inhaled the air for safe measure, her ears strained against the dense fog – and couldn’t make out anyone in her near vicinity. She’d gone out by herself, not knowing who might be out there guarding the same boarders as she. But if their numbers had been any indication, the chances were low that she’d bump into another warrior. Unless someone managed to catch sight of her, trail the same paths; enter the same nothingness that hid potential dangers and allies.
 
Just this once? She thought hopefully. Just this once, if I try – maybe… Maybe she was special, maybe she’d surprise herself – become her own star and burn in the afterglow.
 
But the feeling, the source – it wasn’t what she’d thought it would be. This new ability wouldn’t inherently awaken. Without knowing it, Helovia’s magic had somehow bound itself to a piece of that Ru-soul. Threaded in the unknown spaces rarely touched, and flickering in and out of reality.
 
She stood there, on that path closest to the walls. And struggled to summon the light magic that the Giving Tree had passed down to her. Staring strangely into the distance, as if entranced and spelled away into an unnatural stillness.