[TAKEOVER] The storm likes to go where it's not invited

[Popinjay]

She was not quite what you would call refined.

Popinjay has been thinking.

She rolls in with the storm, expert flier, wheeling and diving on Spring's wild wind, her wide red-struck wings outstretched. Young lightning hums softly in the clouds, awakening from its winter slumber, it arcs at the tips of her feathers, it wreathes and writhes around her with a bright, sizzling sound. She is bird-shaped and enormous, too large for Taiga's close trees to make room, but the wide expanse of Nerine wears her shadow like a canvas wears paint, rippling over the grassy plains and the granite-sided cliffs, and over the pulsing sea, it comes to life.

She circles the Isle, but the icy slip of land holds little interest for her, snow and ice hiding the wreckage underneath, dead trees may do for the ice-king's throne, but not for her, and Popinjay turns abruptly, cutting low enough that the sweep of her wings makes furrows in the snow as she races the wind and cries out a wordless claim in her high, bright, voice. The angle of her wings shifts above the Nerinian Strait, enough that she arcs up and over the cliffs in dramatic fashion, looping high and tucking her wings tight to her body so that she slices back to earth like a bullet, impossibly fast, pulling up at the last moment with an unfurling of wings that bring a sickening halt to her breakneck dive. Her talons reach out for the rocky outcropping, digging into stone.

She cries again, a shrill keer that ricochets off the surrounding crags, and then the air shivers, and she is herself again, small and grinning, her hooves too busy, her forelock curling black as pine-smoke against the laughing-bright star across her brow. Waiting has never been her strong-suit, but she does not think it will be very long.

Image by Ratty

No, this isn't just a bad dream, it is happening. Unless somebody else thinks they can make a convincing enough argument to sway her to follow them instead. Good luck!