you can run but you can't hide
breath on your skin, I've arrived

For months now she has lived quietly, drawing so little attention to her waking that, except for the very few who she had revealed herself to, she may as well have been absent still. But as she stitches the edges over her far-flung visions together, she knows that is coming to an end. After all, fields could not flower if they remained unplanted.

As luck would have it, one if those patchwork pieces had come to settle nearly in her lap.

No one would see her passage along the high cliffs of Nerine save the boy who had so recently come to land on her snowy shores. To him she would appear the least intimidating equine to grace these lands. Bland, the color of mud in the spring, with short legs and a round body and more mane than should be allowed on a horse. Or pony, in her case.

Settling into the part, she stops a healthy distance from the youth, eyeing his spiked tail askance. Her voice, surprisingly melodic with it's smooth alto cadence, is perhaps the only thing that does not quite fit the stout little package.

"Hello!" she offers in greeting. "You're not from around here, are you?"

heartfire

you can run but you can't hide
breath on your skin, I've arrived

She retreats from his touch, as much to protect her illusion as it is aversion to physical contact, but in the end it hardly matters. She couldn’t fault him for being startled. For the briefest moment, even she is unsettled by the visions that manifest as his milky eye finds hers. There are endless possibilities in that unusual gaze. It does not take her long to recognize the future in his sight. Perhaps her abilities do not extend so far, but she has seen enough to know what she is witnessing.

To know that these are the many possible results of the choices she has yet to make.

And then he is tumbling away from her, claws scrabbling against stone as his wings fail him in the blustery northern wind. Expelling an exasperated sigh, she eyes him as he claws his way back over the edge before collapsing in front of her, his panting breaths creating a mist in the air.

She had forgotten how heedless children could be. That their naivete had not developed into inhibition yet. Still, though this was not quite how she had intended it go, the results she had desired were achieved. Partially, at least. And so, with a slight shake of her head, she shifts from small and unassuming to her own taller, slimmer frame. While her true form is not especially intimidating (even in nothing more than heat signatures), it’s clear he no longer has the size advantage over her. Or at least, assumed size advantage.

“I’m afraid not,” she replies quite frankly to his disgruntled question. “But perhaps the ability to better see inanimate objects would prove more useful.” She pauses, tipping her head slightly as she eyes him with a faint amusement. “Unless you wish to tell me the cliff’s edge snuck up on you?”

heartfire