Re-exploration Perhaps

WAKER

You're flying—as usual. You only land to eat, drink, and sleep, and believe me, if there had been some way you could've slept a-wing, you would've done it. It was something about the rhythm of your heart and your wings, the cool touch of air skimming over your feathers and your sweat-soaked skin, the land flashing by beneath—it brought you calm, when precious little else could. You've lost some weight, become ropy, tenacious, but you suppose that's only natural, when fly is all you do.

The white city looms on the horizon again, and you dip a little lower. You'd never seen such intricate formations and designs before coming here, had never even dreamed of them, but since you crashed into the Rift you've come to realize that a lot of things you had never imagined are real. This is just one of them, a crumbled, haunting city, broken by some tragedy you try not to fabricate, because whatever you think has happened will probably only be so incredibly off-target you'll embarrass yourself. It doesn't matter that you won't share your made-up fate of the city with anyone—you'll still be embarrassed.

But you're also still very much a child, so you dip lower, the tips of your black wings brushing against a crumbling wall here, a lonely, broken spire there. It is your playground, your dreamworld, and you can see the wailers coming down the hills, filling the streets, and you navigate another sharp bend, only—

—to find life. Aurelia, the outspoken, golden mare, is walking the broken and empty lanes. Startled, you flare your wings, loosing momentum before touching down on the hard surface with sharp clicks. You jog a couple of steps—click-click-click-click—to get rid of the last of the speed, and then you're standing still, a black statue in a white city, head cocked, eyes trained on the mare. For all the times you've flown over it, for all the times you've swept around its corners and climbed up along its spires, you've never stepped on the strange ground—rock, smooth and foreign underfoot.

"Hi," you say after a moment, slightly winded, suddenly shy. You're just a kid, and she's a woman grown; why on earth would she want to talk to you?