Charlie stood on the shore where the bridge touched mainland Novus and stretched out into the sea. It’s not the first time she’s stood here, at this most mystical and strangest of crossroads. But now she is older, and above her Indy flies wide and low circles like a last fall leaf in the wind. The young girl stretches her wings to the breeze and lifts her vermillion eyes to the distant horizon where she can just see the island.

Where it has risen from the sea.

And she knows that she must go to it, for the way her heart begs her to go to all new things. She is an explorer, and adventurer, and she cannot resist the pull like a siren’s call. Charlie stretches her wings to the sky and the corner of her lips turns up in the barest of sly smiles. Now that she can fly, there is nowhere that she cannot go (without a break or two, perhaps, as her stamina is still not the best).

Charlie rises to meet her bonded, who drifts alongside her. Their shapes dash over the frigid sea like broken reflections, rising over the crest of every wave. “Islands don’t just disappear into the sea and then change their minds one day,” the osprey says, yellow eyes bright and sharp, skeptical. The filly laughs, “This one does.”

“Yeah, well… just be careful. You remember the things we encountered last time?” She does, of course. It’s hard to forget a place like that, with birds that don’t quite look like birds and water that creates weird mist with figures in it. “Everything will be fine, Indy,” Charlie reassures her bonded, glancing at the bird as the island comes upon them like an old friend. Only, it looks nothing like she remembers.

The filly lands on what used to be a beach, but is now covered in dry winter grasses. Her landings have gotten a lot better with Commander Marisol’s help, and she barely trips over her own hooves as she immediately races along the shore. Huge evergreen trees rise up out of the island, with branches dusted in a fine coating of snow. And snow is piled everywhere, as if this place is deep in winter and not that the season has only just started.

“Can you believe this?” Charlie asks, eyes wide with wonder as she begins to trot deeper into the forest. The dry grasses brush up against her ankles and the sound it makes it like a strange whispering. Indy alights upon the girl’s shoulders, “It’s like it’s not even the same island anymore,” responds the osprey.

From the corner of her eye, the filly thinks she sees movement in the trees. Charlie turns her head, “Did you see that?” and begins to move quickly in the direction of it. She can hear the birds in the trees, singing magical and unfamiliar songs. Was it just a bird? Or something else? As the pair rounds the trunk of a tree, they see not a strange creature but rather a familiar face.

“Oh, hello Corrdelia,” she says, slowing her gait as she approaches the older mare. Admittedly, the girl is a little disappointed it’s only another equine and not some rare animal, but there is a whole island to explore at least. Charlie notices that the medic doesn’t seem to have her bonded nearby, and Indy looks on from her perch with keen eyes. “Where’s your crow?”

"Speaking."

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@Corrdelia ask and you shall receive

When the pegasus mare wraps Charlie up in an excited embrace upon seeing the filly, she scrunches up her nose at the strange and unfamiliar contact. She gives Corrdelia a moment but then wriggles out from beneath her wings, hair and feathers mussed, and takes a step back. “I’m fine, nothing bad happened,” she says, though there is a measure of disappointment in her voice. Nothing exciting happened either.

“When the mist came, Indy and I were somehow put back outside the forest,” the young girl shrugs a little, as if she’s already put the experience behind her. No ghost, no spirit, no fun, “That’s all that happened.” To say that Charlie doesn’t wish something else had happened would be a lie, but there are always more adventure for her to go on when one doesn’t exactly pan out.

She glances about as Corrdelia explains why her bonded is not nearby—trying to spot her admist the snow covered trees—but it’s hard to tell what is the slick dark feathers of a crow or the deep shadows beneath a snow laden branch. A snowball fight is what chased away the bird? Corrdelia and her bonded sure are different. Charlie glances back at Indy where she is perched upon her shoulders and can’t imagine them being so different from each other.

Indy might worry herself a little over the young girl’s safety, but they have very similar spirits: strong-willed, free and fun-loving. Her bonded likes to view herself as the older sister of the pair, but sisters they certainly are. “Sure, Corrdelia, we’ll help you look,” Charlie says. “Indy, do you want to see if you can spot her from the air?”

The Osprey, fortunately, has sharp eyesight. She appears to almost shake her head a bit before taking off from her bondmate’s shoulders and rising up into the canopy above them. “Which way did she go?” the girl asks, wondering which direction they should start looking in. The island is big, and the crow could truthfully be anywhere.

So far, this time at least, there doesn’t seem to be any strange beasts on it.

“I guess so,” she glances around with bright vermillion eyes, but honestly it doesn’t look that different than any place deep in the grip of winter. Lots of bright, blinding, sparkling snow and quiet. “Don’t you think it’s weird that it just disappeared into the ocean and then decided to come back?” The idea of the island is strange and cool, sure, but something about it isn’t quite right either, “It’s almost like it can think for itself or something.” Not that she intends to ever stop exploring it.

"Speaking."

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@Corrdelia