Cheri had also been sleepless.
Dreams plagued her. Some were sweet: scenes bathed in buttery yellow light where she was either flying or stretching her dark legs out to meet the rolling turf of an open meadow. Sometimes Targaryen flew beside her, other times one or two of her family members joined her. These were the pleasant kind that always left her feeling fuzzy-headed the next morning, as if the dream itself had been reality and not the other way around.

Some, however, were dark.
Last night, she was running scared through a black forest. The Eclipse was still overhead, though it cast a strange glow like a bloodred moon might. Gone were the emerald greens and rich browns, replaced by a world bathed in crimson light, so powerful that it snuffed out her glowing skin. Her wings refused to work, but she knew that she was running from a monster in the nightmare. The same one that tore her apart had come back for more, and its breath felt so real on the skin of her hide that she turned her head to look behind, but when she did there wasn’t any monster - only a horse billowing smoke and glaring at her with eyes as red as the moon overhead.

She woke with a start and blinked away the early rays of dawn, just barely coming down from above to illuminate the chilly forest and the mushroom she’d taken refuge under the night before. Shuddering, Cheri had replayed the terror through her mind until it disappeared and then she moved out from her makeshift house to go looking for Memorie. In the light of day it was easy to forget her problems: the scar that used to pattern her hide had disappeared by now and her ghostliness vanished as well, leaving her substantial again as if the Quest and the Eclipse had never happened. Taiga itself had transformed entirely; nearly every creature had taken on some of the evergreen traits of the woods they called home, and just the other week she’d found little glass frogs! Tiny, translucent creatures that croaked and bellowed at dusk.

With so much to discover Cheri hardly had time to realize that she was changing as well. Her baby awkwardness was fading slowly, her limbs growing daily (it felt like), and now she made faint clinking sounds when she walked. The crystal formations that’d started to sprout up from her skin were elongating and multiplying, but they seemed confined to her lower legs, rump, and the area of her forehead just above her eyes stretching up to her svelte ears. It wouldn’t be long now until she was a mare grown. “Yan’s worst nightmare.” She’d joked with Memorie after the two had found each other.

The sibling horses chatted and lounged about, Memorie playing the part of dutiful sister by helping Cheri manage her mane and tail. With her magical gifts, Mem grew a smattering of little white flower buds and arranged them carefully throughout the plaits of Cheri’s hair, then sent her a memory of what Cheri looked like through her eyes so that Cheri could appreciate the handiwork. Kissing her sister on the cheek in thanks, the young appaloosa mare bounded off again with a nervous, twittering heart to the meeting place she and Targaryen had agreed upon.

“Yenny!” She called out to him, laughing and cantering down the shoreline until a few buds came flying loose from her mane. They twirled in the air and settled behind her, leaving a small trail, and when she stopped before him the remaining few framed her eager face and clung haplessly to the now-loose tendrils of her mane. “You look… clean!” She teased him with a smile. “Very clean, and athletic, and suave…” She thought to herself, her heart squeezing itself into a ball of nervous energy.

“I hope I didn’t keep you waiting long. I’m ready to go whenever you are.” She told him with a breathy sort of excitement, then glanced out to the calm gray ocean. Her wings unbound themselves from her side and flared carefully, testing the slow breeze and sensing its direction almost like a second-nature. She hardly had to think about it anymore; these days Cheri flew whenever she could.

When she’d been younger (and for Cheri that wasn’t so long ago) Targaryen had always playfully tussled her. A nudge here, a shove there. As she grew, their contact with one another changed subtly from playful interaction to guiding gentleness. Cheri had gotten comfortable using her powers for small injuries or fevers, and in turn her wings filled in until they’d become substantial and ready for flight. At that point, Targaryen had turned from playmate to instructor. Cheri was desperate to learn and as always, Targaryen was patient enough to teach her when they had spare hours to practice. She remembered the firm but natural way he’d educated her, lifting her wings with his nose to simulate what movement she should make when dipping, or lightly tapping her in the areas where she needed to build the most muscle for the kind of flyer she wished to become.

On more than one of those occasions, Cheri had felt a strange sort of tingling in her limbs or she’d feel her own heart kick up a beat in response, but never had she flushed with heat the way she did when Yen impulsively reached out to brush the loose strands of her forelock away. His nicker vibrated against her skin, tender in an unexpected way, and for a brief moment Cheri had nearly reacted by lifting her dark mouth to lip softly at the edges of his. She’d gotten about as far as leaning forward when he’d jerked away again, and the reaction left her a bit confused … but not put off entirely.

He was just being nice. “Yikes.” She thought, slightly embarrassed. “Can’t believe I almost did that.” Cheri shuffled her hooves through the silver shoreline and shook her nerves, along with her wings, out. Could she imagine? Kissing Targaryen … how absurd, right? “Totally absurd.” She smiled quietly in his direction, noting how his gaze lingered over her outspread wings. Probably checking to make sure she wasn’t carrying a loose twig or something, like a good teacher did. For a moment she studied him: the noble slant of his attractive face, how smooth and masculine his cheekbones were, the way he held himself with a pleasant, casual charm befitting a stallion of rank, and then she pictured herself curling up against those muscular shoulders, peppering tender kissing up the arc of his distinguished neck as lovers might … and her heart constricted, painfully.

She resolved not to think about it anymore, quick to take to the air and lift herself up beside Targaryen as his equal. In the clouds her head could be clear, focused. Cheri let her confusion and fear slip away, allowing for the simple joy of life’s enjoyments to take its place. She and Targaryen were naturals at this, and in the heat of their discussion about who’d won that race - Her, obviously - she threatened to knock him out of the sky with a bold, enchanting laugh. Nerine passed quickly underneath them; time always passed so quickly when they were together.

Icicle Isle took her breath away the moment it appeared through the heavy clouds of ice, quite literally. It was more intense then Cheri had expected, having never really been very far north herself. She followed Targaryen down toward the stretch of Tundra and then navigated carefully across the plains of snow and ice, never far behind her companion. By the time they both hit land, she was freezing. “I t-t-thought it w-w-was sssupposed to be sp-spring?” She tried joking through the chatter of her teeth. Tired as she was, Cheri didn’t want to stand still for long. In the distance she saw the maze made of reflective ice and she tipped her head in that direction, wings quivering and tightly bound against her sides. “W-wanna get l-l-lost?”

Cheri doesn’t hesitate to follow. Targaryen left large, round indents in the snow and she placed her own hooves inside of them, looking down at the way the crescents engulfed her steps. It was easier to concentrate on walking rather than to concentrate on how freezing it was this far north. Her wings, made of light but not the heat from the sun, served only to protect her from the worst of the chilly weather and she pulled them as tightly as possible to her sides for any extra warmth they might provide.

There seemed to be a large assortment of horses gathered. Some bands had been on the tundra side of the large island, others - like herself and Targaryen - were trekking through the snow towards the maze on the eastern side of the territory. There was joy here, that much was as clear as the laughter and shouts ringing out in the air. Cheri smiled at the commotion and breathed deeply, her limbs warming up after a little exercise.

Brushing one of her wings against Targaryen’s, Cheri trotted up to his side and did her best to match his long, even strides. “So,” She eased her way into conversation as they passed through the entrance together, “I have some good news.”

The time had come to tell Targaryen of her intent to leave Taiga for good. Cheri had held this secret close, debating about it with her father and talking it over with her mother until the timing seemed right. With a new season approaching and the light returned to Beqanna, Cheri couldn’t think of a better opportunity to begin that grand adventure she’d always dreamed of as a filly. “My parents approved my idea of moving out of Taiga, finally.” Cheri gushed, tilting her head up to better see Targaryen’s reaction. She’d shared her intentions with him once or twice before when they got to talking about the future, but never had it been so real as it was now. She was actually leaving. “Loess is going to be my first choice, and then Tephra if I’m declined.” She told him with a hopeful sigh, stopping herself right before she would’ve slammed into one of the glassy panes of ice.

Cheri looked to their left and then to their right, unsure. She looked back at her stalwart companion and smiled, waiting for him to decide and take the lead.

Standing abreast one another, Cheri could see the slight pinch between Targaryen’s eyes that he was trying so gallantly to hide. It was useless; they knew each other too well to disguise deeper emotions with false expressions. She knew he was hiding a deeper feeling, but what that feeling was she couldn’t guess. Confusion? Sadness?

Each of the Targaryens reflected back at her from the surrounding panes of ice-walls could’ve been the truth. She smiled a bit more earnestly at the real one, and reached quickly to bump her nose against his patterned side as he led them away to the right.

“You sound so terribly sad, Yenny.” Cheri responded with a mixture of tormented confusion. In truth, she’d had a small amount of hope that he’d jump at the opportunity to join her - but her thoughts quickly aligned with his and she realized that out of all the requests she’d made in the past, asking him to leave the only real home he’d ever known might’ve been asking a bit too much. “You know I’m going to miss you too, right?” Her gaze wandered up to glance at Targaryen’s profile beside her.

He was right: there was too much of Beqanna to discover, too many hidden wonders to see and chart out, and her whole life ahead of her. Taiga would never be grand enough to keep her grounded like her father. But to go it alone?

“I never thought…” Cheri’s mind drifted away like her eyes, losing itself to the quiet serenity the maze induced from walking in random directions. She’d never really considered the fact that an adventurous life was a lonely sort of existence. Most mares her age were securing mates for the first time, planning families or joining herds. This new realization was a hard one for the young pegasus to swallow, but she did so anyway. It truly was what she wanted.

“So you’ll stay in Taiga then?” Cheri asked Targaryen after a while, speaking up above the crunch their hooves made while walking through the snow. She didn’t know why but she needed that confirmation from him, the assertion that he wouldn’t leave and she could come home to find him waiting whenever she longed to see him again (which would be often.) He already knew where she would be if he ever wanted to return the favor.