I flew while she ran.

Her heart was beating hard, I would imagine, if not for her form of storm clouds and vapor, crackling lightning and the ever-present scent of ozone. As I flew, wings beating a steady rhythm, I watched her. The way her body was translucent, a smudge in the light of day. How her mane and tail crackled stressfully with white lightning, her horn occasionally spouting extending veins of white before withdrawing into the zig-zagging original bolt.

Storms gathered and crackled thunderously behind us. Since I had chosen her, and she I, she had been careful not to call on enough winds to blow me away, but when she got into a hissy fit like this, I knew it was best for me to drop down in elevation. Yapello would agree with me on this, I’m certain. I only knew him for a day- a single day- before he and Roshana disappeared into the gilded gold sunset. I can’t understand why in the world we would need to leave so quickly. The griffon, big and gold, my daddy, had told me that he was entrusting me to be good, and to back her up. Why? Was I a pet? I asked with a stomp of my talons and a caw of my beak. He had told me no, and in the visual language of us he flashed images across my skull, so quickly that my young mind could barely process it. Still, I understood. I was her companion, and she mine, and we would have to rely on each other. We were family, but even closer. Like mommy and daddy, but not mates. Like sister and sister, but not quite. I tried to understand, I really did. I think dad picked up I wasn’t quite sure, but he preened the feathers about my ears and grumbled a goodbye, and with a swoosh of his wings lifted up and away, leaving me forlorn and alone.

Not alone, actually.

Even if Yapello and Roshana were not here to guide me to adulthood, nor my mam, I had Hespera, and that was all that should matter. But there was a problem, just a teensy one. I didn’t know her! I was a newborn hatchling, still getting used to my wings, and I could sense all her milling emotions, and images that didn’t make sense to me. A pale blue stallion with a mane and tail of cloud. A marble statue, speaking to her, murmuring softly. Silver bars locking her into a pit, snapping fangs and teeth, the howls of wolves. Fear and rage. So many more! A shining spear wielded by a warrior in blood-red armor. A draconic giant, a delicate goat-like lion-like scaly-like unicorn at its massive legs, powerful and regal in its own right.

The feathers along my crested head erected fearfully at the images so wildly interspersed, and I wondered what we were running from. The past? To our destiny? From these horrible things trapped inside her hardened head?

I knew something was up.

But what?

Quicker, quicker she dashed, until my fluffy little wings struggled to keep up. I was just a hatchling after all, only hours after breaking out of the egg. Maybe she wasn’t used to my… smallness yet. I wouldn’t be small for long though, of that I was certain. Surely I would be bigger soon. I hope so. I also hoped she would slow down, because I was exhausted. My little wings beat quicker, but I was slowing down hopelessly. Hopeless numb-skulled mare, not paying attention to me. It made me feel sour and fusty inside, like a bad egg.

At last she slowed, and with a little shriek of anger, I swooped down and landed beside her. Her memories had warned me to stay away from the deadly vortex of crackling energy that was her body. I flinched at the image shooting through my head, brighter than a comet blazing in the night sky. A stallion. Iron gray, dappled with foam white, reaching out. The quiver of his nostrils; the tenderness and regret in his long-lashed black eyes; and pain, pain beyond belief, as if he had been stuck through with a thousand swords and left to bleed out on the ground.

I could feel her apology to me, I could sense her trying to speak to me. The words made no sense, a jumble of syllables and vowels and consonants, impossible to make out as if an English person was reading a Spanish book.

Despair gripped her, reverberating through our bond achingly strong.

Why?

And suddenly, the world turned black and I was spinning downwards, screeching at the top of my lungs, wailing as I plummeted downwards. But she was gone too.


A griffon and a horse lay in a forest of white.


My breath rattled in my chest, painfully and bitterly cold. I let my eyes stay close, afraid to open them, terrified of seeing whatever had caused my fall from the sky I already loved.


The griffon stirs, silver-plumed and dove gray feathers, rising from the drift of snow cautiously, beak clicking together. Even despite the rarity of the cat and bird, what draws the eye is the unicorn, laying strewn across the snow, leaves tossed in the wind. Washed in pale blue and gold, the storm having passed overhead, they are in an ethereal light.

Beside the small griffon lies the unicorn dripping in blood. Every inch of her, washed in crimson red, brilliant ruby and crusted scarlet, gore staining the snow around her. It flows down her flanks quick as a river, cascades from her face, until the tirade slows, but still she drips in blood. This is Hespera, goddess of a land far from here, the daughter of Tarleton and Arjuna, raised by Daermaethor the marble statue, roving adventurer of Berian and Faeron.

This is her, forced into mortal form, a bomb waiting to explode.

This is her, covered with all the blood that splattered through her wraith-like form, red, red, red, the stench of death and decay exploding through the world of Helovia.

Watch out, Helovia; the stormchild was lightning goddess for a reason.

@[Yseulte]

The world was black and white, void of winter's pale palette of colors, save for the eery luminescent glow of various assortments of life: toadstools, pebbles, the ragged bark of wizened old trees; but all marking the trail to different realms of Helovia. She was not yet comfortable with the everlasting darkness and certainly never would be, as she was a creature fashioned from sunlight and scorched desert sand, but she was becoming accustomed to maneuvering through the shadow world, following the amethyst glimmer of Itzal's venomous eyes through the haze of glowing trees. She had even come so far as to appreciate the exotic, otherworldly beauty of this desolate world deprived of the sun's nourishing rays. But as she had learned many times over, beautiful things were not to be trusted; beautiful things were treacherous. Yseulte perhaps most of all. The world smelled of wet wood, earth, and a storm that had shaken the earth to it's roots earlier that day. The sweet cold scent settled in every nook and cranny, seeping into the pores of the Threshold and numbing Yseulte's lips. Snowflakes and icicles clung like tiny glass marbles to naked limbs, sparkling with wild abandon in the bright, encompassing glow of tree bark and vines. With a porcelain tap the translucent droplets scattered beneath her warm, rosewood breath as she passed by, moving at a brisk pace to keep the blood flowing warm and smooth through her veins and to keep her crippled leg from stiffening in the cold. She might have missed the wanderer, were it not for the deep throated snarl of Itzal, who veered off the path into the darkness. She hesitated briefly, before picking her way after him, cautious and silent, every step a whispered hush on the moist earth. A metallic tang lingered in the air, which had a strange, stormy scent. The sharp, unmistakable taste of blood curled in her nostrils in strong waves, making her snort and scour the earth for precious ruby droplets, but it was useless—too dark, too blind. She saw the creatures minutes later, a weary, small frame struggling to its paws, half cat, half bird. Griffin, her mind registered numbly. The griffin's companion lay sprawled in the snow, a lithe mare in shades of ebony and silver. The mare was hardly more than a wild array of blood, hair, and the strange, lingering scent of electricity. Yseulte did not make her presence known immediately, even when her eyes traveled the length of the thick rivulets of blood streaking the mares flanks, neck, and shoulders. She considered leaving them to die, as her father would. Itzal seemed to think the same; he stood silently by her side, his cold gaze fixed on the young griffin with distaste, and then flickered to glistening blood, his eyes glittering with a malevolent hunger. The pale tiger was thinner than he ought to be—they both were. Such nourishment would strengthen him, she knew, and yet, the thought of it sickened and disgusted her. And the two strangers would surely die, if she chose to abandon them. If hypothermia did not take the injured mare, the wolves and other horrors of the forest would. Survival of the fittest, Zjarri would say. Every man for himself. And for a very long time, she had believed him. But for as much as her fair face resembled his, she was not her father, and she could not abandon a sister to die alone. "Get up," she commanded coldly, striding from the cover of the woods to her side, ignoring the griffin for the time being. Itzal remained behind, crouched in the shadows; watching, waiting. "You must get up," she repeated, her voice no less harsh than before. She had no skills in the art of healing; her only hope was to keep the injured mare talking and moving long enough to reach the Edge where Torasin— No, she had abandoned the Edge. And Torasin was dead. A numb, hollow feeling spread through her limbs. Despair. Sighing softly, Yseulte lowered her body and gently pressed to the mare's feverish sides. The stranger's body, despite being severely injured, was lithe and powerful—the body of a warrior, surely. Her skin felt like ice against the warmth of Yseulte's. "I will stay with you." Until you die. It was the only comfort Yseulte could promise. She was not a healer, and nor could she hope to find one in time in this eternal darkness; there was no sense stumbling blindly through the Threshold. The mare's best chance was to remain where she was, but even then... After the mare's death, Yseulte must be gone, swiftly. The wolves were probably already on their way. "Tell me your name, sister," she said more kindly, wondering if she should ease the mare's passing herself. It would not take much—no more than a single blow of Yseulte's pearl horn easing gently between her ribs to the heart, and the mare would be at peace. She caught a glimpse of Itzal's hungered gaze in the shadows and knew in that moment that she did not have the strength, however kindly it might be meant; not when there was a glimmer of hope still to be had. Instead, she pressed her cheek gently against the mare's, and waited for the inevitable. yseulte & itzal,

The darkness pulses in her chest, curling tight claws snugly about her heart, a vicious monstrosity of nature that harbors inside her, product of her divine lineage and Arjuna the Star Eater's occult nature; the darkness she stamps down on every day, the blackness that threatens to swallow her after her short life of terrible sorrows and despairing moments, the happiness few and far in between. Daermaethor's words soothe the snakes' nest inside her stomach, and so she dreams of the living marble statue, chiseled by Tarleton the Sky God, her father, the Terrible and Mighty, the Proud and Glorious. Otienu can sense Hespera's terrible fight inside her mind as mortality wages its war against her side that is deity, and treated as such. The little griffon, half-tiger and half-eagle, flicks a creamy ebon-striped tail in his sleep, twitching fretfully as he clings to her mentality, despite his newness to life, knowing this violent turn of events threatens to slaughter any and all humanity within her, and leave her to die in the black snow lit by sickly amber lights. Oh it's vicious, so brutal, this fight. Hespera's breath quickens in her chest, lungs rasping uncomfortably, and there she becomes mere unicorn, a horn on her brow marking her different; but here unicorns are not different. She is mundane, what she has always sought to be but never realized quite how terrible the price was, this mortality. The little griffin stirs first, wakening from the sleep that ensnared them in a cold obsidian blanket, becoming aware of snow dusting his flanks. Snow. Had Yapello and Roshana, family of the east, ever experienced this glorious soft whiteness that was a chilly nip on his soft ears? Surely not, for they lived in the land of eternal dawn and gentille warmth, a most mild and placid sort of land. Roshana, the golden princess, not unlike Hespera, had advised them to travel to Helovia, for she had read of its tales in the skies, and how they welcomed the fantastical. Not today, it seemed. The white powder crunches, and Otienu's alabaster ears twitch uncertainly, and one eye, split in amber and blue equally, a perfect balance of eagle and tiger, opens suddenly, pupils expanding to see in the near-pitch darkness. The darkness. Why was it so dark? What was the red that glistened on the silver snow, lit dimly by pale, washed-out amber light emanating from a tree, not fireflies? Had Hespera, the goddess of storms in a land far away, been the one to call on this endless night? Surely not. Otienu rolled, cautious, clicking his beak tetchily, marveling at the softness of the snow, before rising to his mismatched feet, eyes searching for the dark ghost that was his bonded. Yet she was not there. Instead, beside him lay a illeid, a mortal, unlikely to live past fifteen years, and she was not even marked by the sacred paint of the old herds that roamed a land where Hespera was god. He recoiled, cawing in shock, at the blood. At the lavender maiden laying beside her. If he could speak, he would cry out, for she could and had killed her lover through a brush of a muzzle, she bristled with so much electricity; but the lorelei was peaceful, even with the hardened look in her hardened eyes. A warrior lass, like Berian, painted in sacred reds of a lampeet, a foot soldier who ran quicker than the wind and scouted out the trail. What was more, this lady was a great beauty, even Otienu could tell that. Hespera stirred, and what was strange was that there was not a single wound scarring her body. Very odd indeed. Crying out with alarm, the hybrid leaped forward, pecking at her with his beck, shrilling softly, unable to produce the fine songs of a songbird, much to his dismay. He could not soothe her the way he wished. "I am mortal." The mare murmured, not quite awake. "I - am - mortal?" She speaks louder, returning to her senses, and Otienu does not dare to breathe. "Berian. You know my name- when have you..." "You are not Berian." Hespera pauses, rocking back and forth slightly, before she rises to her legs. Her legs tremble, a newborn, and she falls, unable to catch herself, unused to this strange body. "Hespera. I am Hespera, and this is Otienu. Who are you, tigress and tiger?" - HESPERA & OTIENU -