"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
In an attempt to avoid the worry and confusion surrounding my mother and father, I find myself high in the sky today, concentrating on flying. My wings are unsteady in the high altitudes still, but I figure it is good practice, so I circle the clouds a few times, getting the hang of them. They were late blooms, unlike Cheri’s, who’s started to appear very early on in our youth, and I was only just starting to actually use them aside from a few minor hops over streams and gullies and such.
It feels nice to be among the clouds, but also a bit chilly, so I thrust my wings down so that my body lurches upwards for a time until my slim figure bursts above the clouds where the sun shines bright. It is only marginally warmer up here than it was within the clouds, so I wouldn’t be able to sustain this for long, but the view is spectacular. Worth the cold that digs deep into my bones.
Within minutes, however, I am growing too cold. So cold, in fact, that I am finding it increasingly difficult to use my wings. Fearing what could happen, I tuck them neatly to my side and nose dive back through the clouds. It takes a matter of seconds to burst through the bottom of the clouds, which aren’t terribly high off the ground, either, and within a few more seconds, I have covered nearly all the space between the clouds and the ground.
You know how you shouldn’t push it when you’re getting used to new experiences? Well, this is one of those times I shouldn’t have pushed myself, but I did anyway. As I throw my wings out to catch the wind and steady myself before I crashed into the ground, I find myself completely unsteady. My wings are still stiff and weak from the cold, and I had never actually tried a nose dive before, so stopping myself in the air was proving a lot harder than I expected. When the wind catches beneath my glowing, blue wings, it catches unevenly, more so under the right wing than the left, which causes me to tilt dangerously to the left, and then, in my attempt to correct this, I overcorrect myself and tumble to the right.
Of course, this was all very close to the ground, so as I twist and turn violently in the air, I am also rushing down to meet the ground, and by this time, it was unwise to try to correct myself again, so, lest I crush my wing beneath me, I throw them in to my sides just before slamming into the ground on my shoulder. I withhold the pained yelp that threatens to burst through my lips.
For a moment, I lay motionless on the ground, the wind knocked from my lungs, and my body stunned. Then the wind rushes back into my lungs, and a sharp pain rocks my chest. With a groan, I force myself to roll to my side, grimacing as I do so. “That’s gonna hurt tomorrow…” I moan, then I shove my weight beneath me and lift off the ground. I shake out my wings, still wincing through the pain in my shoulder.
I look around. I recognize the flora here. This is the Forest. But it is slightly different area than those I’d been to here. Colder. More menacing. Uncomfortable, I feel out the plant life. It feels…angry. Not wanting to anger it anymore, I begin to hobble my way in a direction I think would lead me home. The pain in my shoulder is sharp and obvious, and I have to stop periodically to rest. At one point, I stop beneath a wide elm tree. Its bark is pale, and its branches grow wild above me. I imagine what it would be like to climb the tree, but of course, that’s not possible. Still, I allow myself to get lost in the daydream.
06-16-2021, 12:24 AM (This post was last modified: 06-16-2021, 12:24 AM by Lillia.)
.
"Oh my Goodness, oh my Goodness!"
Lillia's cries of alarm reach no one as she watches the filly catapult like an asteroid from space into the earth's surface. From her vantage point not far off in the summer sky, the little angel hovers and adjusts her position, wishing to either speed up time or slow it down but knowing neither will change the outcome in the least, craning her neck to see if the girl yet lives -- and yes! Just there she rises, an ache clear in one forelimb by the way she limps off after long minutes of collecting herself, though her glowing wing seems by all accounts all right. Still, the heart in her breast compels Lillia to investigate further.
Swooping down, Lillia whinnies so as not to cause the girl fright and further injury before landing alongside her with a flutter of her downy wings. Halo beaming and aura radiating, Lillia blinks her blue eyes twice at she before whom she stands (halting her in her path, one might notice) and inhales.
The soft ring of her voice follows.
"Hello, I am the angel Lillia," she begins, her voice neither invested nor withdrawn, friendly nor unfriendly. Rather, she sounds with a pleasant blankness, like one awakened but yesterday into a preconceived form which, though she took a liking to, she has not quite yet figured out the dynamics of (and indeed, such a likeness more resembles reality than not). Still, her good intentions cannot be misinterpreted for, as she gazes into the goat-filly's eyes, she exudes an almost undetectable but certainly impressionable essence of hope.
"You hurt yourself back there. May I heal you?"
Lillia
@[Memorie]
Eee this gave me so much happy muse!! Thank you x 1,000,000!~
Lost in my daydream, I miss the emotional signature that enters the area until a soft whinny startles me out of my thoughts. I jerk my head up and around to look at the stranger, and instantly I feel her presence. The sensation brings a sort of calmness to me. I can tell she is worried, and the look she gives me tells me that it is myself she worries for, so I give her a warm smile as I turn away from the tree to face her, the smile broken for a brief second by a grimace of pain from the movement.
I would have spoken a greeting, but the pale mare gets there first. Her voice stops every thought in my head for a brief second, and my head tilts ever so slightly in curiosity. My first impression is that she sounds like an angel, and within a second, her words confirm that suspicion. I smile keenly, a hundred questions popping into my head in that moment, but I restrain myself (which is a feat, because if anyone had known me as a filly, they would know I was full of questions that just spewed from my mouth unbidden). “Hello, @[Lillia]. I am Memorie.” I pull myself up straighter, trying to ignore the stinging pain in my shoulder.
Her next statement startles me once more, and if I weren’t already red in color, my cheeks might have flushed with color in that moment. She had seen my ungraceful plummet from the skies. I grin sheepishly, glancing down at my hooves for a second before looking back up at her. She had offered to heal me, as well. Did this mean she has the ability of healing like Cheri? Curiously, I prod at her emotional memories for a brief moment, trying to get a better read on Lillia. There is nothing there to indicate what her abilities are, at least not that she is attending to at the moment that would be available for me to sense. “Uh…sure,” I say with a little uncertainty.
"Memorie," Lillia repeats back to the filly. The name evokes warm sensations and pleasant notions, bringing light to the inside of her eyelids and thoughts of spring and plenty to her mind. The name suits the girl, Lillia decides; in fact, she could imagine it no other way.
In the time between their brief introduction and Memorie's acceptance of Lillia's offer to heal her shoulder, the angel notices not the gentle incursion into her mind by the one opposite her; rather, she notices how the girl starts and moves her body to express some uncertainty. No matter, Lillia decides with a gentle thought; she had given her consent with no beguiling.
Not that Lillia could ever beguile anyone!
Inhaling, Lillia steps forward and reaches to press her nose against the filly's injured shoulder. Just before she makes contact, she looks up at Memorie (standing a full four hands above her despite her youth) and says:
"This will not hurt you."
And so it goes.
With her nose to Memorie's chestnut shoulder, Lillia closes her eyes and prays. To the everything from whence she came and to the nothing to which inevitably she must one day return; to the time in between that composes what she understands as this present corporealization. Around them, the meadow hums with life, grass waving, sky passing. The interaction lasts less than a minute and, true to her word, Lillia inflicts no pain upon the girl.
She makes no effort, however, to conceal the limp in her forelimb as she steps back, healing completed. A beatific smile colours her delicate expression despite the pain that radiates through her.
