For the Sky (DISCONTINUED)

7 - A Pirate's Promise

I woke up at the crack of dawn, the sky starting to get washed over with brilliant strokes of gold against a pink sky whose contrast against purple was surely going to mold back into blue. For a few minutes I just sat up and looked, letting the fresh breeze toy with strands of my mane and wash over my wings.

I found that morning that I could properly move them. I had always simply dragged them around if I had to take them out when no one was looking and they would start seizing almost immediately anyway, but there had been something cathartic about getting to let them splay out for a night. I rolled them forwards and a bit back and even tried giving them a shake. They were still incredibly weak - What would one night do? - but they felt rejuvenated.

A small sigh sounded from somewhere around me. I started frantically glancing around in my peripheral, methodically putting my wings back together again, but froze as I locked eyes with Raul.

"I've never seen a pegasus before..." he said, dazed. His eyes were wide, his ears perked, and his mouth slightly hanging open.

"Oh," I managed a light laugh as I unfolded my wings and started rolling them around again. It was such a simple statement but such a sad one. It's not as if we were some kind of creatures of legend that Crocus had concocted to spring on the heroes of old - we were once a people. And now I'm the last one...

"I never thought that they'd be so... big," Raul continued in bewilderment. "You could barely see them under your cloak but they're... huge!"

"Beautiful, isn't it?" It was Asger that spoke in Raul's ear. He looked up at me and nodded, smiling. I shuffled a bit away from him, my heart racing. Not only had I not noticed him waking or his subsequent approach but... Pull yourself together Leiah - don't be such a child!

I stretched my wings out as far as I could and was pleasantly surprised to see that the tips were entirely out of my peripheral. "They're not as pretty as my father's wings were," I gave them another playful shake, euphoric with the feeling it produced in my back. "I had to keep them hidden for so long a lot of my feathers fell out."

This didn't seem to faze Raul in the slightest. He sat and he stared in awe and wonder as I even managed a single flap. That ended up being incredibly painful and my joints had grown so stiff that all that was sent up was a breeze no stronger than the dawn's own breath.

"We probably should leave soon if we want to get to the docks by noon," Aro startled me from where he lay.

"Right, right, of course," I nodded, quickly maneuvering my wings back to how they lay. It was incredibly uncomfortable - just through a few minutes of getting to use them again I couldn't fathom having to fault them along my back for another good handful of days if not weeks.

I fastened my cloak, got to my feet and after taking just another few moments to graze purely to get something in my stomach, I set off through the woods back in the direction of the road. This time as we walked there was a good clamor of hooves on the old cobble. Aro didn't make any noise, but his height and overall presence was more than enough.

Asger held up the back as he did before. I glanced back at him several times just to make sure he was still with us and each time I did, he seemed to be lost in thought. His good eye would be pointed mostly to the ground, his neck hung low. I would turn back around each time with a huff and a loud snort. He seemed to have the heart to smile, but hadn't had the heart to tell me the whole truth.
-
The port town of Foyre was a marvel of architecture. While at its core it was still clearly a part of the Northern kingdom, there were Eastern embellishments sprinkled throughout like parts of houses built out of adobe bricks and strings of houses connected with intricate wooden bridges and board-walks rather than the simple dirt or gravel road that you'd find where I grew up.