now i don't know who i've become
and another day breathes
tearing at the seams
and i hope i don't come undone
Winter falls across Beqanna in a blanket of grey weather and persistent snows. Where the clouds break sunlight spills down in streams and glitters across the snow-dusted landscapes below. She wonders if the cold season of the south will be a great deal milder than the one she spent in the east as a child. Aloy sails above the heavy clouds, her wingtips sweep down and whip them up around her white fetlocks. She drops through one of the cavernous gaps in the cloud cover and dives toward the plains-land far below.
Hoovers drop to the earth and take up a smooth lope that carries the chestnut to the streams’ edge. She’d seen it winking in the sunlight from far above and now lowers her head to drink from it, slowly folding her strong wings away. The water is cold but not frozen here and her breaths send ripples away from her muzzle over the surface. The immediate area is quiet but Aloy’s ears pivot and strain to pick up any noise over the sound of the water and wind. The bent grasses obstruct her field of vision and she raises her head alertly after only a moment. While she has accepted Aela’s invitation to join the Pampas it is not because she liked the other mare particularly or because she has any illusions of fitting in among the members of this band.
Not for the first time she wishes that it were possible to just be alone. She thinks to turn from this place and return to a life she thinks that she enjoyed, separate, always moving. Away from Beqanna and the history that ruined her life before she even had the chance to have one. That would be ignoring why she is returned, however, because it turns out she is just as capable of bringing ruin upon herself.
