Powerful things...

For days, the forest night was alive, not just with the sound of crickets, but with the sound of cries. "Lief! Lief! Lief!" It was too dangerous to call out for him during the day. It was only at night that the Alastrians dared to pick up the search, hissing in their native language, hoping that it would be mistaken for birdsong or insects. The voices were mostly high. The desperate calls of children, including Ariadne, a skinny, small thing with hair the blue of candy floss and skin the green of the underside of a maple leaf. She moved with precision, her enormous, black wings never getting caught in the underbrush. This was Deleo. This was her home. And she knew every inch of it as well as she knew her own name. For seven years, it had been her shelter.

And her prison. But that wasn't the kind of thing she was permitted to say. It was forbidden. Just like the trips she sometimes took to the riverbed.

"Lief!" she whispered, more like a prayer than anything else. "Lief? Where are you? Why won't you answer us?"

( The first night... )

It was Ariadne's turn. She couldn't explain how it was that she knew. She just did. There was a thrum in the air that morning when she woke up. Like someone had plucked the string of a lute and just let the note echo into nothingness. Today would be the day of her First Flight.

Ready or not.

The First Flight was a rite of passage for young Alastrians, going back and back and back, who-knew-how-many generations. The first time a child stretched their wings and took to the sky. Or, more likely, plummeted down into the underbrush and scraped every single appendage. Ariadne, her brothers, and her sisters had heard the story of their father's first flight time and time again. He could remember every excruciating detail, pointing to each of the bones he'd broken as he hit the ground. Only about half of hatchlings managed to fly their first try. And it hadn't escaped Ariadne's notice that three of her brothers were limping and one of her sisters had a lump on her forehead, the size of an acorn.

( And now it was going to be her turn... )