[AW] Break me at my Best

[Aryel]

Every inch of her was soaked to the skin, and every muscle in her wings screamed with pain. Sweat and rainwater stole away her body's dwindling warmth as she fought a losing battle against the unseasonable storm that raged over the coastline, blown inland by ocean winds. There was nothing but churning darkness below her, a hungry sea that would swallow her up without a second thought if she gave up now. Legs thrashing helplessly below her, the stocky pegasus strove desperately to stay aloft, though her wings felt like lead weights with each stroke. There was nothing left in her, not even adrenaline, just a primal will to survive, to deny the ocean it's claim on her life. 

Worse than the physical agony, though, was the mental pain of loss. Java's terrified cries as he was dislodged from her back and sent spinning into the darkness still rang in her ears. He had been the closest thing she had ever had to a friend, the gentle calm to her firey storm, and she had let him down. He was gone, and it was all her fault. She screamed her helpless rage to the heavens as she battled the winds that tossed her about like a leaf. The ocean couldn't go on forever, there had to be land somewhere. She just had to stay above the water til then.

There--beyond the darkness below her, a scrap of pale grey. Sand? A coastline? 

Safety.

With a few precious embers of hope now stirring within her, she angled herself towards the rapidly-approaching shore. As it drew closer, she squinted through the driving rain and found herself looking upon a sea of sand, rather than water. Belatedly, she realized she was coming in too fast. The winds were driving her towards land, and her wings had no strength left in them. She flared them out, shouting at the new surge of pain, but it barely helped slow her uncontrollable descent. There was only enough time for one thought to cross her mind before she made contact with the ground.

This is really gonna hurt.

And it did. Mercifully, Aryel's exhausted body won out over her mind, and she lost consciousness right before the crash.

The disheveled girl hit the ground on her right side, outstretched wing barely avoiding being crushed beneath her weight. She tumbled forward, pulled for several feet more by her own velocity, until she finally came to rest on the rain-soaked beach, a mass of feathers and fur. The storm would rage on through the night, finally abating in the wee hours of morning. When a grey dawn arrived, the sunlight would find her still lying there in a twisted heap, one wing spread out across the sand while the other was tucked loosely at her side, hindquarters half-submerged in the lapping surf. The only sign that the scruffy creature was still alive was the shuddering rise and fall of her sides.

[Seraphina]

She’d settled into a routine.

Seraphina had risen long before the dawn and departed the Court for the desert, hoping to make her way to the ocean before it grew too hot; she’d found that her dark coat granted her few favors in the realms of day, and she knew just how unforgiving the Mors could be, all of her years of experience navigating the sands aside. Regardless of whether or not the Day Court – or any of the courts – had a Sovereign, someone still needed to patrol its borders. That had been part of her job during the reign of the last Sovereign, and Seraphina imagined that, until she was told otherwise, it would remain part of her job. She reached the shore just as dawn began to peek over the edge of the horizon, casting rays of dull, blue-grey light across the sands. The beach was littered with driftwood and dead jellyfish, tell-tale signs that a storm had passed through not long before she had arrived. Sucking in a breath of salty, humid air, a sharp departure from the suffocating dryness of the desert at night, she began to comb her way down the shoreline, examining the wreckage that the storm had washed up.

When she first caught sight of the pony, body splayed awkwardly across the sand, Seraphina wasn’t entirely sure what she was looking at. She approached the unidentified mass cautiously, at first, but she soon identified the greyish mass as a body and the two black masses at its side as wings, and, for a moment, she thought that she would have to give the thing an impromptu burial. A few more steps and she realized that its small sides were heaving – evidently, the storm hadn’t claimed another casualty. With the way that the pony was laying, partially obscured by water, she could only imagine that it had crashed in the storm. Seraphina imagined that the most reasonable thing to do would be to see if it was conscious, figure out its intentions, and bring it back to the court, assuming that she could figure out a way to move it, or it could walk on its own. With that in mind, she strode over to the limp creature’s side, odd eyes darting over its – her, she realized – frame thoughtfully. The pony was stocky and small, as might be expected, but, from the look of her, a decent amount of power rest in her compact frame. She’d already noticed her genuinely massive wings, but a set of horns sprouted from the pony’s skull, and she was not simply grey – a black mask covered most of her face, though it was interrupted by a stripe of white, and black stripes ran up her legs. She didn’t seem to be awake, but Seraphina supposed that it would be better to check before she attempted to move the pony out of the surf.

Extending a foreleg, she prodded the pony’s side rather firmly with a charcoal-colored hoof. ”You. Are you conscious?” Although she was asking a question, Seraphina’s tone wasn’t especially inquisitive, and even a slight examination of her features would find her entirely unconcerned.

[Aryel]

Aryel's exhausted, dreamless slumber might have gone on through the rest of the day had something not poked her in the ribs, followed closely after by a monotone, feminine voice. Brows drew together at the disturbance as her consciousness slowly limped its way to the surface, and a slurred, unintelligible murmur came in response to the unseen speaker's question. She forced her eyes open, blinking away the sting of saltwater, and raised her head from the damp sand. Searching for the source of the voice and the prodding, she looked about, wincing at the throbbing headache the action caused. A set of dainty hooves were the first things to come into focus, and as she craned her head up, the rest of the horse came into view. Lanky and athletic, she had coloring similar to herself, but where Aryel's banding and mane was dark, this horse's accents were snowy white.

The other had asked her a question, and it took her a moment to gather up her scattered wits. "I think I am." She was up and talking, after all. The stocky girl stretched out a leg and dug one hoof into the sand. She attempted to rise, only to sink back down with hiss of pain because holy shit everything hurt. There was no sharp-gut wrenching pangs that would have signified a broken bone anywhere, thank the gods for that, but her muscles felt like someone had beaten her half to death with a tree branch, then come back and kicked her for good measure. "I feel like death warmed over, though." she said through gritted teeth, trying to adjust her position and lay in a way that didn't hurt so damn much. It didn't help a whole lot, and she was covered in sand and saltwater, but at least she was starting to get some blood pumping back into her battered limbs. She looked back up at the other, studying her with more wariness than before. "...Am I dead?" Maybe she hadn't survived the storm after all. If that was the case, though, this was a pretty crummy introduction to the afterlife. This mare didn't look much like a spirit at any rate. She would have expected more halos and harps, not the look of profound disinterest that currently graced her striped face.

[Seraphina]

Her light shove in the ribs seemed to be enough to awaken the pony, who twitched and mumbled for a moment before raising her head and looking around, bleary-eyed and tensed with pain. It didn’t take long for the pony’s gaze to find her, though, considering that she was standing right in front of her, it wasn’t much of a feat. Seraphina eyed her without a hint of judgement – or pity – as she seemed to get her bearings, stating that she thought she was conscious now, albeit in a good deal of pain. The way that she was fumbling around, likely attempting to move into a less awkward position or, better yet, stand up, probably wasn’t doing much to help any injuries she might have. Her lumbering had temporarily distracted the pony from Seraphina, but, once she had successfully managed to reposition herself, her eyes were back on the larger mare, growing cautious with her increased awareness. She proceeded to ask, with perfect seriousness, if she was dead.

That was a ridiculous question, to say the least. “No,” Seraphina responded immediately, her tone and expression neutral as ever. “You are in a land called Novus, on the borders of the realm of the Day Court.” That information probably meant nothing to the crashed pony, but she supposed that it might help her to get her bearings, on the off chance that she did know of these lands. “I am Seraphina, a warrior of the Day Court. I do not imagine that you are a threat; under the circumstances, I doubt you even intended to land here. State your name and purpose, and I will bring you back to the court to recover.” It didn’t seem like the pony was as badly injured as she’d first imagined, seeing her slumped on the shoreline, but it would be best if a healer took a look at her. She would also need fresh water and food, and both were rarities in the vast desert that sprawled out from the coast. Seraphina kept her eyes trained on the pony; regardless of whether or not she intended to come to these lands and whether or not she was actually trespassing, given that the court had no Sovereign, and, therefore, no laws, it was Seraphina’s job to assess whether or not she was a threat before dragging her back to the court.

Assuming that the pony's answers were acceptable, she couldn't help but wonder how she would transport the pony back to the court. Hopefully a bit of time would give her enough control to stand again, because, although Seraphina was the considerably larger equine of the two, she didn't imagine that she could carry her. At the best, she could allow the pony to lean on her, and even that would be awkward given the sheer size of her wings. 

[Aryel]

Novus? Day Court? She had never heard of this place, which was both good and bad. She was likely as far from home as she could get, all but ensuring that nobody would ever be able to bring her back, but it also meant that she was now alone in thoroughly-unfamiliar territory. The mare introduced herself as Seraphina, explaining that she was a soldier of this land. Aryel couldn't help a spiteful chuckle at her observation that she was unlikely to be a threat. "I'd like to see you get thrown around by a hurricane and come out looking like anything other than a drowned rat." she muttered, trying once again to rise to her feet. Just as before, the motion made her face twist with pain, but she forced herself up off the ground. Clumps of wet sand dropped off her pelt as she did so, and she shook herself to be rid of the rest. Tucking her wings in carefully, she sized up the other once more, noting the size different between them with some annoyance. Her father's folk were ferocious, yes, but you wouldn't know it by looking at them, and she had inherited that stature. The intense look of neutrality on the other's face remained, and Aryel snorted quietly. "I appreciate your deep concern, really I do. Don't worry, though--I'll live." The sarcasm in her voice wasn't at all difficult to miss.

Her name and purpose was requested--more demanded, really. "Aryel. No purpose other than trying to find somewhere I can live my own life." She fancied herself an explorer, yes, but that didn't mean she was averse to finding somewhere to settle one day--she just needed to find somewhere she could stand to live.

Thoughts of exploration and travelling caused the tragedy of last night to resurface painfully, and some of the cockiness dropped away for a moment. "I didn't come here alone, though. Have you seen a large bat recently? Orange fur around his neck, face like a little fox?" Whatever gods are out there, please let Java be alive. "We got separated in the storm, I have to find him."

[Seraphina]

Seraphina did not appreciate the sarcasm, but she didn’t feel a hint of irritation at it, either. Her gaze remained cool and composed, eyes never leaving the pony’s. Seraphina offered no response to her initial comments, rather waiting until she had finished her introduction to speak again. “I am sure that you are unaware of it, but this beach borders a desert. The Mors is vast and vicious, and many inexperienced with its dangers die attempting to traverse it. I would recommend returning to the court with me, regardless of your current status, Aryel.” Not infrequently, on patrol, she was forced to bury the sand-riddled corpses of strangers that had wandered foolishly into the desert. She could still reject her invitation, of course, but she imagined that could quite possibly end poorly for the pony.

 It was only then that the vulnerability that a more empathetic creature might have anticipated from the beginning peeked through the pony’s bitter exterior. For Seraphina, the shift – the faint tremor of something like fear in her voice – was alien, inexplicable. She reasoned that this little bat of Aryel’s must be bonded to her, and she understood, to some extent, what that meant. She remembered a little mare from a few seasons ago, another soldier. She remembered how happy that little mare was (what was her name?) when she found that gazelle, and she remembered the cold, dead look in her eyes when she stared down at its corpse. Bondeds are gifts from the gods, Viceroy had said, and failing to protect them will bring down their wrath upon you. That little mare was never the same.

Though her expression never changed, she kept that information in mind as she proceeded. “I am afraid that I have not seen your companion. I have combed the entirety of our coast in that direction,” She said, glancing over her shoulder to gesture at the beach sprawled out behind her, “but there is a considerable amount of land to be covered ahead of us. If you feel capable of doing so, you may follow me while I patrol, and we can search for your companion.” Aryel seemed a bit bruised up, but her stocky build likely contained a decent amount of power – she knew better than to judge an opponent strictly by their physical stature, and the pony was far from waifish besides. She could likely hold her own on the off chance that they ran into trouble, and taking her along would prevent her from stopping her patrol to take her to the Day Court.