On days where the snow obscured one's path from view, I was glad we lived in the desert. The sands still grew warm then the Sun managed to peek out from behind the dreary, overcast, pregnant clouds above us. The nights were chilly, but as the days grew shorter, our coats grew longer, thicker, more capable of containing our body heat.

There was also the convenient fact that my beloved possessed a magic she was still learning, a magic that allowed her to live in whatever weather she pleased, a magic blessed upon her the same day her father passed from this realm, to the next. I remember that day. It was a beautiful day, one I know she thinks about often - for I hear and feel all her thoughts, and she feels most of mine. Each time she thinks of him, a glimmer of sadness dares to stick it awful head up, and I growl at it, and scare it back down - each time, it gets easier, and I know that there will be a day that she will think of him, and I will not need to chase away the sadness, for she will be healed.

Why we are in the Threshold this day is something I am still unclear on. My beloved wished to travel North, that much I know, but she was without direction, without aim or purpose. I clung to her back, like I had many times now (slowly I was getting used to the idea of flight), shutting my eyes tight against the chilling wind - silently hoping my beloved would employ her gift to warm the air around us. But as I delve into her mind I realise she is doing something else, asking the wind to be gentle to her wings - they were larger than most pegasi, I had noted with some pride, but this also meant that they were more prone to getting caught in unpredictable windfalls or uprises than those with shorter, stouter wings.

It was like a prayer in her cranium, a chant, murmuring over and over, I felt her plea to her magic to hold on, to guide her bodice in exactly the way she needed it to go - I felt fear rising at the back of her mind, from the same place the sadness sometimes peeked out of, fear that she would fail in this flight in the midst of a snowstorm, fear that we would descend. I growled, champing on her mane with renewed vigour, chasing the fear away, lending her my strength, my fearlessness, my inner fire. It worked - until we saw something, someone descending from the skies before us.

It was only because she was so dark against the whiteout of the snow that we noticed her descent. Through my beloved's eyes, I watched the form fall in just the way my beloved feared we would - but we did not copy her. Holding fast to her magic, she barely summoned the wind to give us a gentle landing, and with some curiosity she saw another approach the fallen form of the pegasus. With a smooth leap I was upon the snow on my own dark feet, watching as my beloved Cirrus tucked her large wings to her side, and approached the fallen one with caution, nickering out warmly (despite the chilly circumstances).

With a stubborn shake of my coat, I felt the fire ignite along my back then, chasing away more cold from the scene, and giving it a new, eerie, blue light. Cirrus meanwhile, summoned her voice, and in firm, unyielding tones, she ordered the one standing nearby to stand back - kicking snow upon an unconscious soul was not going to help. "Stand back, and be quiet." It was not impolite, merely given in the tones of one who knew better - my beloved was a healer, after all, and was slowly gaining more experience in these circumstances.

I felt her concentrate then, as she called upon her personal magic to make the weather be more pleasant - she was not yet strong enough to abate the storm completely, but she could take the edge off it, and offer the local area with some unusual warmth - aided by the flames that danced along my spine. I came closer, giving her eyes the light they needed to see the extent of the damage. Though the patient was unconscious, my beloved began to hum and chant, knowing that the melody helped her own concentration just as much as it often soothed the patient. Hopefully, as the patient woke up, it would be slowly - should she wake up to quickly, she was liable to hurt herself more.

It was after she found her tune that she summoned the magic the Sun God had blessed her with as a healer of the Throat. I felt it light up within her, I saw it glisten behind her cerulean eyes. The storm that raged in the skies above also raged upon her coat, but there was a calm serenity within my beloved, and she extended it to the fallen creature before her, reaching down with her soft muzzle to touch the dark pegasus' wet pelt, feeling a warm connection lace them together - her magic, as it moved from herself to the unconscious. It was thrilling, to feel it weave its way around the bruised and battered body, leaving nothing but pure, perfect flesh in its wake. As it danced around the mind of the fallen, the light cushioned the damaged brain, gently restoring what had been altered to make the mare fall unconscious.

The job was complete, and with a deep sigh, Cirrus cut the tie to the healing magic, feeling duller, darker in the wake of the Sun God's brilliant, enlightened gift. I crept closer to my beloved's side, lighting her instead with the flames upon my back, flames that would never burn her, but instead always provide her with the comfort that I was here.

And then we waited, to see what would become of her efforts.