Eira...
A herd… nay, family was the word Roscorro had used, one night soon after the momentous meeting in Halyven; though Hope had vanished into the ravaging darkness of that rainy night, thrilling discussion about duties had continued at length, and the small waif had listened with inexhaustible interest, heart pounding to the thrum of excited voices. Family was a term that Eira had not heard mentioned since she was but a babe beside her Ma, but its weight, the promise in its meaning, had filled the void of yearning within her the same way as warm milk, nurture, or the loving company of her (now lost), brother. The orphan had been lost and alone, for far too long. Stepping now with this new air of inspired hope and determination about her, she found herself wandering further afield than the sinister face of The Portal, into the humid shadow rainforest, above the Rift’s southernmost coast. Eira had called the area home for many months and knew a good portion of the trails interwoven throughout it. The soft patter of rain greeted her downy, pricked ears and the familiar flavour of damp rotting litter flooded her sucking nostrils. Lowering her too-large looking skull momentarily, the emaciated blue filly brushed the beading water from her lashes against her knee. The barbered feathers sagging by her flanks shuffled and shook a little in place. It was difficult to ascertain the time of the day, the rainforest was cast in deep shadow already and a dreary overcast sky only exacerbated that. Still, the orphan was undeterred as her crooked knees inched deeper through the saturated undergrowth. As if from nowhere, a sharp, loud volt of electrical light erupted aside her hind leg, startling the stunted creature forward to escape. The hair all over her wasted frame stood on end, and for minutes after, Eira could hear nought but ringing in her ears. It was only as the dim outline of another materialised between the girthy trunks of the ancient trees, that her legs slowed. Dark blue eyes hesitated and her shoulders flinched rapidly as hot blood and adrenaline coursed wildly, yet, though the potential for company stirred worry through her mind, the yearling let a friendly smile ignite her expression. "I am a book of snow, a spacious hand, an open meadow, a circle that waits, I belong to the earth and its winter." |
(just wanted to note that Eira's horn hasn't grown in yet despite her profile picture)