so i had done wrong but you put me right
my judgement burned in the black of night
Her wings had begun to sag, as if they were still burdened from the memory of the storm of nightmares. The fringes of her onyx feathers had even reached the ground where their blue-black irridisence brushed against the lightness of the new-fallen snow; a stark contrast to how she felt. The birch made no protest as she sharply pushed herself away from it at the approach of the stranger.
It was Areane who made an inaudible noise, a hum of something that barely escaped her throat.
Turning her shimmering head towards the approaching horse - a blended figure of black and gleaming gold with shadows trailing behind him - her ears flicked back, and then forward before the slender pegasus moved again. Tucking her wings neatly alongside her barrel, Areane turned herself around so that the stallion might greet her directly.
With her mind still swirling with terrible things (or rather emotions, the memories are there but they are like half-remembered dreams), she tenses when he speaks. Her dark shoulders tighten and it takes everything remaining in her to release it with a short exhale. A plume of silver smoke escapes from Areane’s flaring nostrils and the young pegasus does her best to form something that resembles a small smile.
"I will be,” Areane says, an affirmation. (It’s the closest she can come to admitting that something is wrong in the presence of someone she doesn’t know.) Her sides - though covered by her shimmering wings - are still lathered with sweat and perhaps it’s her own imagination, but the winged female still thinks that she can scent the fear clinging to her skin.
Could he smell it as well?
It’s then that her head turns from side to side, glancing around and then, eventually, tilting back to the sky above that she had fallen from.
"Could you point me in the direction of Tephra?” Her attention returns to him, this paradox of shadow and light before her, and Areane’s tight smile breaks a little as her nerves begin to settle. Her heart no longer flits about like a hummingbird, though it still flutters uneasily at her inability to recognize her way home. "I'm afraid this last storm has me turned around."