so i had done wrong but you put me right
my judgement burned in the black of night
Something shifts on his dark face, an expression she can’t name but only identify because it reminds her of how plummeting from the sky had felt. Something in her sinks, and in the descent, a thousand worries descend like storm clouds. This stranger wasn’t familiar with Tephra, and what he says next is even more worrying.
The lands have become inhabitable since all the rage-winds that took place surrounding the Mountain. For a minute, it feels like Areane is spinning again. She shivers subconsciously, her body remembering the cold rain as it pelted her blue-black hide; the snow-covered ground vanishes as she recalls and remembers. The former Loessian nearly loses her footing until she hears the voice of her father (Tarian was always such a steadfast man, it is easy for her summon him in her mind’s eye and hear precisely what he would say: Find the herds. Chaos often drives the herds together.)
"Thank you,” she tells the spotted stallion quickly, swallowing her rising panic. There is a lump in her throat, full of fears of what might have happened to Tephra, to her parents, to Starros. Her inability to speak would do them no favors and she would learn nothing from being silent. "If we can find our way out of the Forest, the volcano should be visible from the land-bridge.”
If it even still exists, her fear goads.
Areane begins to make a circle, glancing her amethyst eyes up to the sky (with a twinge of apprehension furrowing on her speckled brow), trying to grasp some sense of direction. Which way she had fallen from? Had the Mountain been through the thick copse of trees behind them, or would Tephra be waiting on the other side? She could fly and easily get a sense of where they were, but the thought of flying so soon made the dark wings at her slender sides nearly clasp themselves again her barrel.
"Have you heard of any place where others might be seeking shelter?” Areane asks. The Forest was still standing, so it gave her a measure of some (small) hope that other places might as well. How much has changed? she so badly wants to add.
And then she realizes that the stallion nearby with the gleaming spots has offered to help her and she has offered him almost nothing in return. "I am Areane,” she goes on to say, knowing that her name was poor compensation for anything. But it was what she had, and given the turbulent times they found themselves living in, the onyx-colored pegasus offered it as a token of her gratitude.
@prime well your helping me remember <3