[open] you had your maps drawn

[aletta]

Aletta has been as unmoving as the Mountains of her youth in regards to her habits.

There is respite to be found in the sleeping hours. However, the silver mare has spent many of them speaking with stars instead of resting. (Those twinkling sentinels have become more of companions than transients through their years together.) There had been many restless nights trying to understand their intentions - to learn about the things she never understood.

(And maybe that was the way her traveling soul made peace with staying in one place for so long. She let her mind wander where her heart could not go. Perhaps that was the way she had learned to cope with staying still when the wanderlust in her veins had told her to go.)

She has long kept vigil with the night but Aletta always looks forward to the dawn.

The dawn represents new beginnings. It represents a start where an encroaching night only speaks of an end. Dawn usually begins with luster, still gilded with all the promise of things that haven’t gone wrong. It emphasizes the inception of things that could be and haven’t yet (or won’t) become tarnished with the endless cycle of the sun.

(Oh, to be at the start again. What would that be like?)

At this moment, it's easy to pretend that she is doing another patrol. The foals and the rivers are long gone but the ghost of that lifetime still starts each day with her. It’s not the beginning she had just been contemplating but the familiarity of the habit keeps her company as she walks this trail. It’s an easy companionship, Aletta and her silence. One that has been with her since the beginning of her journey away from the Mountaintops.

Only that is not the only thing with her, not this morning.

Having had spied him further down the trail. He was hard to miss, with those wings and a horn that looked like it had gone awry. (A battle scar, maybe?) In the morning light, he was all silver and glory. Like her earlier presumption of him - hard to miss. "Morning,” the former Regent replies just as carefully back to him, unsure what to make of the winged stallion.

Floundering in the early morning quiet, she tilts her head. "Care for company…?” Aletta asks, leaving the space in the question (and the trail) open if he wanted to take it.

@[Mesec]