dreaming of winter flowers

[Charlotte]

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

☸