elif
She was not quite perceptive enough (still too young, burning with hotter things) to notice when the maze-mare’s eyes switched from pleasure to pity. It wasn’t until the heat built and built and the smoke began to billow that Elif’s eagerness passed into unease. It was not until the guide began to choke on soot and her flowers sprout into flame that the pegasus’s eagerness slid into fear.
By then it was too late anyway, and there was nothing left to do but run, and singe her wing-tips, and swear below her breath until the maze spit her out into the cool evening air.
-
She still feels like swearing as she stands outside the maze, but her curiosity has her too fully caught to leave the area entirely. For the moment Elif only drifts outside the dark hedges, wondering what strange magic is occurring within those whispering leaves. She had been the only one to choose her path; were the others more successful? Oh, her blood still runs as hot as that burned-up passageway, and her skin still feels the bask of the sun on it despite the deepening evening.
So when she sees a familiar figure prowling the edges of the maze, separate from the pairs and groups of wandering-folk, it seems only natural to approach. Elif does not quite smile as she approaches Apolonia, but the look in her eye is appreciative when she spots the last of the sunlight glinting off the girl’s hurl-bat.
When she draws alongside, she tucks her chin toward her chest and glances side-long at her fellow Solterran, the expression in her green eyes marking her as more open and curious than her severely-short mane or tightly folded wings suggest. Elif still looks something of a hawk - but a fledgling one, smelling darkly of soot and magic.
“No luck for you, either?” she asks, and flicks a wingtip toward the hedge whose shadow they stand in. From somewhere within there is a terrific noise, an explosion or a scream, and Elif raises a brow. “Apolonia, isn’t it?”
