''Just a crow''

-Queen-

The chapel inside the castle's protective walls was small but beautiful.

Stone whiter than her own skin, Hellebore knew it to be essential for Solor up north to look like this.

The mosaic windows of great battles of the past, the mahogany wood pews, and the elegant decorations in respect of the gods.

The red and golden, the white, the marble and the grout, everything seemed perfect. While a simple nest was convenient for her, human's, elves or other being's resting places were always so intricate and thought out, she could see the appeal.

The gentle caress of the wind brought her out of her thought, whispering of her about not being alone but not breaking from the moment.

Like for her Master, like for thanking the gods for this world, Hellebore was comfortably on her knees and sitting back on her ankles, feet on each other, fingers intertwined and lifted to her face, eyes closed.

"I never thought a crow would pray to the gods."

"It was an accident that I've gained thought but it is the gods that have let me experience it your Grace." She said, keeping it in a low volume in the chapel, standing up.

The priests had made their way out through mutters of death birds, she did know word would spread but she didn't care for these opinions .

"It must have been the gods that brought you to our walls that day then."

"It was the wind your Grace, who'd watch their offspring end like that? I might have accepted my death for when it comes but others don't have too." She sat on a pew since the Leira had too, to not dwarf the queen.

"Daughter of the wind." Leira repeated the once said title to herself, only getting a smile back. A smile of a hundred words, hundreds of beautiful words. "I wonder, how is it like to fly?"

"It is free. It is you and the wind, higher and higher, through the clouds, to the sky's limit, wind through the feathers, breeze carrying you high and mighty, taller then anyone would go, could go."

"It sounds beautiful Whi--Hellebore."

"Oh it is your Grace."

"Then why do you pull you wings on the ground?"

It had not only been her husband that realized this, it was clear to her too.

The crow that would sometimes leave for week, flying high and mighty, was smiling through the bars of a cage with no ceiling and yet she didn't look towards it.

Such beauty behind bars, chained to the unforgiving ground, never to spread its wings, she was heart shattering for Leira. Nothing this pretty was meant to be locked away.

"I'll fly soon your Grace, a bird is never far from the sky, but I shall fly when I've been proven worthy since I hid much from you for my own amusement and interests. The wind whispers your Gace and so I shall not fly as your men cannot follow me there."

She almost felt like crying, just burst into tears and screams at how a choice that was made to be sure she was not a spy had been what chained Hellebore down and stripped her of her wings.

And yet this intoxicating smile, this ever gentle eyes of violet, offered HER comfort while all they must be feeling in longing for the freedom all birds are born into.

She was so lovable and yet something so otherworldly, it was way to exciting to fathom.

"Once truth is out on the table, you'll fly, oh how you will fly." Leira promised, just like her husband, in the grasp of this death bird without her even trying.

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Hellebore carelessly slept on her usual perch, still on her stomach, arms crossed under her head to cushion the blow but legs crossed so none hung off and this high beam was in the throne room.

Just a few more days, the couple would whisper to themselves as they stared at their tranquil guest.

Soon they'd know.

Soon they would be able to unshackle such a great beast finally and let her soar.