𝐒𝐊𝐈𝐍 - 𝐡.𝐩.

16 | Golden Wings, Golden Love

She glanced up at the horses and examined their colour and structure intensely, feeling a light-headedness trying to take over her senses resulting from the fumes of whiskey the horses were drinking. She shook off the feeling, and looking back into her book, the pages automatically flipped to the page where an identical horse was illustrated.

"Elephantine Palomino Abraxan-winged horses." she read out loud the name of the species given next to the picture. "Well, that's quite a mouthful."

She read more about them, their food habits, and their physical and magical characteristics. Copying down a few important pointers from the book into her notebook, Gemini sighed and frowned at the last line, 'the horses are often considered dangerous'. This was plainly the reason why she preferred to read Newt Scamander's books over any anonymous ones like the one in front of her. People automatically assumed any magical creature to be dangerous just because they didn't have the gall to walk up to them and try to form a kinship.

"We'll see that, won't we?" Gemini glared at the words and slipped off the rock, leaving all her stuff on it.

She loosened her green and silver tie and pulled it over her head and then rolled her sleeves up to her elbows. She didn't know whether it was the whiskey that made her do it or the very fact that her hair tie was squeezing her head, but she took the "damned thing" off and slipped it on her wrist. Thick blue curls came free and bounced on her shoulder blades.

"This'll be fun," she said as she made eye contact with one of the horses.

The herd of twelve all whinnied and snorted as the one she'd met eyes with straightened up from the trough of whiskey and tossed its cream-coloured hair. She walked in a way that didn't make it seem like she was compromising her pride but also with an unrushed speed that assured them she meant no harm.

The smell of the whiskey strengthened and so did Gemini's efforts to resist the effect. Every step she took in direction of the horses was accompanied by the maintenance of eye contact.

When she was at the border of the paddock, she simply stood in front of the steed for a while, her hands resting idly on the fence. Then slowly, the horse bent its humongous head down to her level and looked her right in the face.

"Hello dear," she said, tenderly reaching out a hand to touch it.

She stopped herself when the horse seemed a bit hesitant and allowed it to take its time to meet her hand. She stood very still until the horse willingly leaned forward and pressed its forehead to her palm. It sniffed her foreign scent, trying to find out whether she was trustworthy or not.

Those few minutes always made Gemini nervous. One wrong move and she would lose the opportunity to befriend the creature altogether.

So she waited.... comfortably still and at ease. When its examination process was complete, the horse nuzzled readily into her palm and Gemini felt the largest smile spread over her face.

"That's right, tell me everything," she whispered. She slowly shifted her hand from the horse's head to its neck and ran her fingers through its silky fur. "what ails you.... what delights you..."

She sighed, "Aren't you a beauty,"

The horse whinnied with pride and licked her cheek.

"Aw, darling, I like you too." she grinned, stroking its jaw with the back of her fingers.

The sound of multiple hooves trotting brought her gaze up. Some of the other horses were approaching her curiously, shaking their wings and snorting. Gemini's starry-eyed gaze marvelled at them, and she found her heart lighter than it had been for a while.

She stayed there all afternoon, simply acquainting herself with the horses and taking down notes on their behaviour. She drew a few rough sketches of them and some explicitly of their wings.

When a light rain started to fall, she used her wand as an umbrella. All of her stationery was water-repellant, so she didn't have to fret over that.

Occasionally, a Beauxbatons student would come out and spot her and even Madame Maxime came to see her when the rain started. The Beauxbatons' headmistress was both astonished and delighted at her progress with the horses.

The Beauxbatons students were an entirely different story. Most of the girls who saw her seemed jealous of her and sent dirty looks her way whereas the boys were all at once attracted to her. One even came up to her and tried to talk, but Gemini kept using Archaic English in between sentences. In the end, he got so flustered by words such as "venery", "cannonade" and "izzard" that he awkwardly left her alone and rushed back to the carriage.

Gemini didn't even know what the words meant, she'd just come across a dictionary of Archaic English in her library during the summer and decided that it would be fun to use the words in conversations.

The moment the boy had entered the carriage, Gemini had burst into a fit of giggles that eventually turned into uncontrolled laughter. She had just been leaning her head on the fence, laughing her head off with Twig when a chorus of voices sounded behind her and she straightened up.

The Beauxbatons students were leaving the carriage — it was evening already.

"Merde!" she exclaimed and pulled out her watch, "What's the time —"

She cursed yet again at the position of the clock hands and snatched her books and quill from the rock. Screwing on the lid of her ink bottle, she minimized it with a spell and stuffed it into her pocket.

Gemini was never one to be late for any event, and she wasn't going to break her streak anytime soon. She grabbed Twig off one of the horse's ears, where he had been babbling to it, and kissed the horse between the eyes. "See you later, Henry," she patted its neck and began her journey to the castle, careful to not slip on the wet soil in her haste.

However, the image of Hagrid talking to Madame Maxime with a rapt, misty-eyed expression did not escape her notice. When she was sure that she was out of their line of sight, she bent over and gagged a bit, making Twig giggle which, in turn, made her smile.

She whipped her head back, blue curls flying all around, and stared longingly at the horses. "Do you think they'll miss me?" she asked Twig with the slightest tinge of sadness in her voice.

Twig jumped onto her shoulder and patted it, shrugging.