Under the sun beating out heat rays that penetrated the thickest of skin, Andash pranced proudly round his newly found homeland. The scolding terra firma scattered with rocks and sand was a beauty to behold underneath the bright heavens of the daytime. Tallsun was taking its toll on the frondescence that was scarce at the best of times in such a dry area, but did not dampen the sir's spirits.

His frosted pelt glowed in the light, yet was now dusted with the sand from the desert of the Throat. It did not take long to become part of the scenery in these conditions. A light breeze began to pick up, that tossed his ashen and sapphire silks, and ruffled the feathers of his bleached wings. It made him feel like he was soaring high in the heavens; if he had ever experienced such a thing. The thoughts of his defected left wing scorched his mind, bringing back the painful memories of being the jester of his former herds. A sudden surge of these thoughts made him rather vexed at his deformity. I don't deserve this.

"I am blessed with wings and yet I am cursed with not having the chance to use them. What madness is this?"

Glancing back he saw the faint blurred silhouettes of other members of the herd, hoping that they weren't within eyesight to witness what he was intending to do. Andash pawed the soft, hot sand with his lead daggers, arching his neck and stretching his crown into his chest, bucking up the courage.

Stretching his wings the best he could, he moved. With a certain grace that was evident of his tapered, burly physique, he strutted on the spot, gradually moving into a soaring gallop across the desert.

He was trying to fly.

Slowly but surely, he began to lift off the ground. Something that had never occured in his short life. Ferociously fighting against the breeze that was becoming ever thicker, his orbs full of determination, he rose higher. His magnificent and beautiful right wing danced as it performed what was only expected of it, but his left wing would not comply. It struggled moving, causing Andash to lose balance. Panick froze his body as he was fastly approaching the ground. With a crash he landed, falling into the sand that softened only slight.

....

Lifting his crown, dazed, his azure orbs blurred, he slowly began to focus again and regained some control. Hopeful that no one had seen him, he was about to lift his mass back onto all four pillars. But someone stood in front of him. Oh no...

Andash instantly recognised the sweet voice of the dame - it was Cassiopeia. A sense of humilation washed over him like poison spreading in a wound. He had hoped no one had seen him, yet here she was, standing in front of him with her graceful silhouette shading him slightly from the sun. Her royal tinged pelt glowed, her orbs azure at this time clouded with concern.

Shaking his crown and pulling himself onto his sturdy pillars, a slow shaking from within overtook his body. "I'm fine." His azure pools emitted pain and melancholy. He turned away from the duchess' eyes, not being to contain himself as his emotions played deeper. "I'm a fool, I don't know what I was thinking. I knew I couldn't fly!" His kissers trembled while his usually proud poise shrank into a that of an inferior infant.

He took a glance above. The sun beat hard, but the heat was not something that he thought about. A question arose him in, something that he wished to know. Turning back slightly to face the dame with his crown, "What is like to fly? To feel the breeze underneath your wings? To be able to travel through the sky instead of being rooted to the land." he inquired Cassiopeia.

As the azure dame described in such vivid imagery how it felt to fly, he could almost feel himself experiencing it. The emotions that seeped through his body danced in his icey azure orbs, a wonderous look that fell upon the elegant lady. Cassiopeia was evidently concerned and this comforted Andash to the point that he began to attempt to pick his large frame back up into a small fraction of his original, proud stature.

The thoughts of being free intrigued the good-natured sir. Slight tingles and shivers paced down his ashen pelt from the blessings others of his kind had; to be free of the shackles of land if just for a moment. The word of magic uttered by the velvet kissers of Cassiopeia brought his attention back to earth. "Magic? I assumed that low ranking creatures such as myself were excluded from obtaining such things."

The frosted beast carefully chewed over the sweet dame's words that her kisses had melodically uttered. I could become a soldier. The ambition continued to surge within, this was something he'd always wanted - to be part of a herd with a purpose. Not the jester, not the nuisance. But to be a soldier, to protect the creatures of the herd even if it cost him the ultimate price of his life, to keep perhaps even the one he shared more emotion for than any other, when he found such a sweetheart.

Stepping deep into the scorching sands of the vast Throat with his sturdy daggers, he pulled himself upright into his signature proud poise, as if the whole event had never occured. He now had a purpose to living; to become a soldier, and perhaps even then go forward to complete a quest in the name of the gods that reigned supreme and almighty over Helovia, for the chance to be normal. "You are most kind, sweet Cassiopeia. Since coming here you have truly spoken the words of utter wisdom unlike any other." Staring into the distance where his azure pools scanned the scene of the herd members going about their daily business he added, rather boldly indeed, "Would my becoming of a soldier gain a better advantage of finding a sweetheart?" He turned his handsome bleached crown back to Cassiopeia, orbs dancing with lonliness and longing. A breeze suddenly picked up that tossed his long silks like paper in the wind, that played with and gently ruffled the feathers of his wings.

The ashen beast dipped his refined crown in embarrassment, though he gently nickered a word of amusement. The emotions soon switched to a more serious front, as he aimed his azure pools at Cassiopeia. "I guess it's what my mother used to tell me when I was but a yearling, when a creature comes to love you for your faults, only then will you have found that companion." A sadness washed over him as he wondered whether anyone would ever fall so deep for a defect as himself. Yes, everyone bore faults, but a pegasus who was unable to fly? A fault above faults, possibly the ashen brute's largest disadvantage. A dame would want someone who could protect her in the skies as well as on land, something that he would perhaps forever be incapable of doing.

"Perhaps one day," A content smile travelled across the width of his velvet dusky kissers, realising that for now, friendship and belonging was nothing to feel blue about. "I must prove my love for the homeland, for I am blessed to have been accepted into the herd." Andash flicked his bleached, azure tinged silks across his sturdy rump, and paced slowly up to Cassiopeia to touch her tapered roan shoulder in friendship and thanks. A simple gesture of a friendship that Andash assumed he had found in the in the dame.

Thank you, Cassiopeia." He began to turn back on himself with an elegant dance of his daggers and he advanced slowly back into the midst of the herd members, expertly navigating around the sharp sand rocks, as the heat beat down upon his dusty ashen pelt.