[open] she was swallowed by the sky { any }

[Ravin]

Ravin ducked beneath a branch, not quite low enough to avoid the soft shower of morning dew that sprinkles his feathered withers. His attention was on the figure ahead, a winged mare standing at the edge of the small pond. The greying stallion could not remember the last time he’d run into someone here, usually quenching his thirst in solitude following a flight. He had seen her coming down the slope from a distance, and known that the path she was on led to the same small pool he was headed toward.

She would get there first, so Ravin had been less careful as he made his way toward the pond, the soft hiss and swish of grass and sedge heralding the half-stratosian’s arrival.

“Mind if I join you?” He asks, watching his own footing as he moves down the bank. The mare is not someone he knows, and the denizens of the Gates tend to be easily startled. It’s also rude to stare, so he waits until he is at the water’s edge, head lowered, to look directly at the stranger.

Though he sometimes acts as a guard of this place, it is only ever against roving wolves or bears that come down from the Unknown North - never against his own kind. If she has run off, startled by his arrival, it will not be the first time a stranger has done the same. Ravin too, has the winged creature’s reaction of flight, but he has learned to control it…mostly.

@ Aera