There's no walls & no ceilings as far as I know

just the echo of scars and the unbeaten road

It’s all in the arrival, the entrance, the beginning. How did your story start, and with what words, and did you draw your audience in quick enough? The where, the what, the who… those don’t ever matter as much as the how.

Or at least, that’s what they say.
Never mind who they are.

In this case, the where was by the ocean, the cliffs rising up from the brine like a jagged fortress, the spray filling the air already laden with the scent of salt. Gulls cried and circled, as sea fowl tend to, endlessly searching for small fish and crabs. The sun had risen but it was early yet, and the heat was still finding its way into all the crevices, and while it was busy making the stones warm, a lazy sea breeze ruffled along the edges, idly moving through tall grasses and heather, displacing bees as they wandered through the air toward thistle blossoms. 

It sounds peaceful doesn’t it?
It’s one of those situations where ‘if the tree falls and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?’ moments, where everything is still and sweet and picturesque…
You know what happens next, right? Please don’t tell me this is going to surprise you.

She arrived.

Where did she come from? We’re never sure. But she soared through the morning air, bright blue wings catching the early rays. She spied the cliffs and headed toward them, braids strung out behind her, excited to see what new land she was encountering. The small mare folded in her wings and dove downward, fully prepared to make the most elegant of landings – 

There was a noise like a roar, and wetness, and she snorted and spun, lurching sideways through the air as her wings tried to catch up to the frantic messages her brain was sending. The land came up a bit quicker than intended and she landed roughly, dirt and grass and pebbles spraying as she skidded to a stop. Did she land on her feet? Almost. She’d ended somehow on her bum, eying the cliffs and the water that had betrayed her by daring to gush upwards when she hadn’t been looking. 

She snorted again, quieter, and picked herself up, stretching her wings out fully before folding them against her backside. A few loose feathers drifted gently down to the ground and she left them there, a silent apology to the earth she’d torn up. It had extracted a toll from her, too, her right haunch was scraped, but nothing that had broken the surface. She’d be sore for a few days, but that was nothing new in the world of Cress Crash Landings^TM. 

Finally, satisfied that she was mostly intact, the little blue jay glanced around, bright yellow-orange eyes landing on the one person that had likely born witness to her marvelous entrance. She grinned and trotted toward them, the word embarrassment nowhere to be found.

“Did you see that?!” She shook her head, as if she could hardly believe it herself. “Woo! Ocean tried to get me!” She shifted her wings a little against her back, the crest of feathers on her head standing up as she looked over this hapless victim of her now undying friendship. “I’m Cress! Who are you? Where are we?”

Ah, she never really did well with small talk.

There's no walls & no ceilings as far as I know

just the echo of scars and the unbeaten road

The little blue jay eyed her new companion, tilting her head slightly as she did, the dark rimmed feathers on her head lifted curiously. Her candle-bright eyes quickly slipped over the cream and rust girl, the antlers sprouting from her poll and the waves of hair curling down her neck and smiled broadly at her as she agreed with her about the ocean and told her a little bit about herself.

Cress bobbed her head enthusiastically, the thick braid of her mane slapping her neck lightly. “That sounds very pretty, your home place!” She said, grinning, shifting her wings against her backside quickly, moving them into a more comfortable fold. She thought about her own upbringing, about the mountainous lands that her flock had spent the most time in between winter migrations. There had been high cliffs in parts, some that had reached over lakes, but not oceans. She liked the ocean, though, liked the smell of brine and the call of gulls.

The younger girl continued, telling her that the land was called Novus, and that they were likely in a section called ‘Dusk’. Cress considered that, glancing up at the bright morning sun and wondering how a place could be named for a certain time if that time was not always present. She decided, in that brief thought, that it was alright – she, after all, was named for a plant, and she certainly wasn’t one.

“It is pretty here, too. And thank you, that’s more than I knew before.” She said, still smiling. “I only just got here, too. Are you going to be living here? I think I might like it here, it feels nice.”

She paused a moment, gazing out over the horizon and then back at antlered girl. “Do you need permission to live here? You said it was a court…” She trailed off, uncertainly. She hadn’t been part of a true herd or flock or anything since she left home. She’d only ever really been a visitor, a stranger in strange lands. It might be nice to stay for a change. At least for a while.



[ @Maude - she's adorable! they're gonna get along great! <3 ]

Let’s be honest, Cress isn’t the most…detailed orientated creature.

She completely missed the soft sadness that had washed over her antlered friend, completely missed the ‘was’ in her answer, not putting together that this young girl hadn’t traveled to Novus because she’d wanted to, hadn’t just been out to explore the world… no, in some way shape or form, this girl’s homeland had been taken from her, ripped away without the possibility of her being able to return. No matter that Cress had no intentions of ever really returning to her family, it wasn’t impossible for her to do so. It was always there, a safety net, a plan b, waiting and ready to catch her.

But that wasn’t the point.
The point was that Cress missed all that, because she is not good with subtleties.

The little blue jay turned away from the view of the horizon and back to the cream and rust girl, who answered her question easily, and her worried brow eases, her smile returning as quickly as it had gone. She bobbed her head and giggled back at her, stopping as the girl continued. She crooked her head a little… so many names that she didn’t know! It seemed this Dusk land had a lot of new friends she needed to meet.

“Maybe this… Dusk court… is new? Or Novus. Or both.” She said, as if the idea of a new realm just popping into existence wasn’t strange to her. “But its been around long enough for you to have had some adventures here! That’s always fun!” She said with a grin.

“So if it’s a Court, does that mean there’s… a castle? Maybe we should go there! Introduce ourselves!” She said suddenly, body quivering with the desire to prance in place (she restrained herself, barely). She remembered then, what her friend had said, about not being sure about staying here. “Hm. Or maybe we should look around? What do you think?”

Our little blue jay has been called many things in her life, the vast majority of which were not said to her face, but genius? Genius was absolutely not one of them. For those keeping score here, the petite sky-blue mare wasn’t the brightest bulb in the box, not the sharpest tool in the shed, not the...well, let’s not overdo it, I think you’ve gotten the point. As sweet and kind as she was, she was neither book smart, nor street smart, and this guess was really just a miracle shot in the dark that she’d gotten something right.

Maybe I’m being mean… maybe I don’t give her enough credit…
Well. This is the same girl that tries to talk to frogs.

Regardless of my musings, Cress practically preened at the compliment, yellow-orange eyes bright and round. Sorry Maude, there’s definitely no getting rid of her now, she’d decided the two of you will be friends for life, even though she doesn’t know your name yet!

She paused at the girl’s words about how she’d arrived there. She herself was no stranger to suddenly arriving in strange lands, sometimes with very little recollection of how she’d gotten there. Sometimes it was as if certain places just… snatched her into their realm, and then just as suddenly spit her back out again somewhere else. It was all part of her adventure and journey, really, and she just didn’t question it.

“Hmm. I’m not sure! I remember being in another place, and I met a lot of friends there. And then I had flown somewhere else and…suddenly the way back wasn’t there anymore, so I kept going forward. And then there were all these cool islands…and then I thought I saw another island in the distance so I flew toward it and… then the other islands were gone and I was landing here! Talking to you!” She grinned, as if she thought this was the best possible ending to her story.

They continued talking about the court then, and at first Cress was confused by her friend’s words, titling her head a bit to the side until she clarified. “Oh!” Cress shifted her wings a little on her back, unfolding one for a moment and glancing at it briefly. “Well, I’d walk there with you of course! It wouldn’t be fun to fly there alone!” She bobbed her head with a smile.

“And it’s okay that you don’t! You have such pretty antlers! They’re really cool! No on in my family has anything like that!” She reached out to gently nudge the girl’s shoulder earnestly.