The moon was full this night, sitting high in the velvety-black sky and bathing the mountain range below in pale, shimmering light. A mare as dark as the sky above moved softly and quietly along an exposed ridge, the moonlight dancing off her ebony pelt and setting silver jewelry to twinkling. A veil that usually covered her face had been lifted back and held in place by her ears. It was easier to see at night without it, her glowing eyes slightly illuminating the path before her. She approached the very edge of the ridge and peered down, finding a sheer edge disappearing into dark nothingness below. Raising her eyes to the heavens, she peered from star to star, naming them each softly aloud in a tongue unfamiliar to these lands. The sound was elegant and prosaic, almost musical, and even if you did not speak the tongue, you could hear that she spoke their names with love. They had different names here, but they were the same stars she would see in the Court, and they reminded her of home. She thought of the things she loved and missed there, which were many. But even more numerous than her fond memories, were the broken pieces of the horrific things she endured. Perhaps her mind had tried to spare her the anguish of reliving the events, because the memories of her torture were not solid or complete, and were missing many parts that she had tried and tried to remember, but to no avail. She closed her eyes, sniffing at the wind as it whipped the edge of the cliff, picking up the ends of her heavy hair. Behind her eyelids flashed broken visions of her past, blurry bits and pieces of her story and her time at Court. A brandished blade, broken wings, slashed and bleeding flesh, the ground splattered with blood and fallen feathers. Nienna shuddered and gasped, her eyes flying open wide, terror shining through the soft glow they emitted. Her breath was jagged and short, hyperventilating in a sudden panic brough on by these broken flashbacks. She whimpered and squeezed her eyes shut again as she shook her head, two tears escaping her closed eyelids, leaving a shining trail as they slid down her cheeks. An anguished and tired scream escaped her as she opened her eyes again and peered down the cliff into the nothing below. She drew herself up to her full height, peering down her nose at the cliffside, slowly catching her breath in deep gulps. “Not anymore,” she said forcefully as she closed her eyes once more and simply stepped off the edge of the cliff.
She was falling so quickly it was difficult to draw breath. She felt instantly exhilarated, the visions quickly fleeing her mind as she dropped faster and faster, her glowing eyes open once again. As the floor of the gorge quickly came into view, she pulled her legs in closer to her body and suddenly spread her large jet-black wings and soared away from the ground just in time, pressing the grass flat against the ground and sending leaves flying with the force of her propulsion. Tears continued to stream down her face, but her expression had turned to grateful elation as she felt a weightlessness overcome her. The skies were always where she found peace, her way of escaping her brother’s torment and torture. But now she had finally made her true escape and had left the Court far behind. Leaving her home was hard but she could no longer abide her brother’s evils. The Queen of Shadow is merciful, but that did not mean she needed to endanger herself any longer for the sake of mercy. And though they are few, there are indeed some in this world who do not deserve mercy.
Perhaps Tirion did deserve it, but Nienna could not give it to him any longer. He himself was merciless in his actions and turned his evil on his own family, the ones he should have protected instead. Many of Tirion’s other siblings and their children has already fled, Nienna was one of the few left under Tirion’s yoke. It took her much longer to part with her home, to give up on the family and their legacy. But she came to realize that this was no longer a legacy worth upholding, and that sometimes the greatest mercy one can show is to themselves. She owed it to herself to escape his tyranny and to try to find a life with safety, love, and warmth instead of torture, hate, and humiliation. She had heard of these lands where the others of the Court had fled, and she hoped to find them here. Perhaps here they could build a new legacy to be proud of.
She must have been lost in thought for hours, her wings carrying her almost to the end of the mountain range, because as she looked East, she could see the darkness of the sky beginning to lighten as the sun approached the horizon. She flapped her wings gently, turning south towards the foothills as the mountains below grew smaller and smaller. Nienna smiled as she looked to the West and saw that the moon and sun had timed their cycles perfectly today. As the sun was breaking the Eastern horizon and lighting up the sky with brilliant oranges and pinks, the moon was sinking to meet the Western horizon, its bright light fading and the moon itself growing paler in the sky, just a faint whisper of it visible before it disappeared behind the Earth. Nienna took deep, full breaths in through her nose, her eyes closed in a silent prayer to the stars. Slowly gliding to the ground as the sun rose fully above the horizon and the foothills disappeared into rolling prairie, Nienna felt more at peace than she had in decades. She was certain that these were the lands where her siblings, nieces, and nephews had fled, and she was determined to find them. They would write their new story here.
WC: 1015
