Youth

#75 - A Breath of Freedom

    This was all extremely new to her. Everything seemed strange, and this was perhaps the cherry on the top; riding a talking horse with wings. Or, as the locals call it, a pegasus. [Y/n] was shaking and clearly terribly unsure, however Rya - the silvery creature who encouraged her to do such a strange thing in the first place - had a confidence about her that eased [Y/n]'s nerves a little.

    "Keep your knees up," Rya instructed, turning her head to nuzzle [Y/n]'s legs up so her knees sat on the creature's withers. It was an uncomfortable position for [Y/n], who'd never so much as sat on the back of a horse before. Thankfully she could rest her feet on Rya's wings. Which she understood wasn't something people who rode horses got the privilege of. It took a lot of the strain from her thigh muscles away and stabilised her a little.

    "L-like this?" [Y/n] questioned quietly. Rya sighed.

    "You've slid yourself too far back, you need to move forwards a little," she explained. [Y/n] made her best effort to shuffle herself a little further forwards.

    "Is... is this not really uncomfortable?" [Y/n] questioned. Rya tossed her head in a shaking motion.

    "No, so long as you don't sit too far back or too far forwards," she responded, before turning her head to look at [Y/n] again. "Your knees have dropped again." [Y/n] raised her knees to Rya's withers once more. Gosh, this was hard work, and they hadn't even started moving yet! "Right, I'll walk. Hold onto my mane, but don't pull it too much please!" Rya let out a small whinny-sounding laugh, before taking a few careful paces forwards, one of her ears pointed back slightly to listen for any discomfort from [Y/n].

    [Y/n] held onto Rya's mane carefully - she wanted to cling on for dear life as she seemed to have quite a bouncy gait, however she feared making the pegasus mad so she abstained.

    "Feron has designated me as your steed when he isn't around," Rya explained. "Usually he'll be the one to transport you, however." [Y/n] shuddered at the thought of more petrifying dragon rides, but at the same time... the prospect was exciting.

    "So... what is Feron to you guys, anyway? How does this society function?" [Y/n] questioned, the stutter leaving as she found a little more confidence, the pair walking around a forested clearing in circles.

    "Feron is our leader. We've never titled him as king, however. His mother and father were king and queen. Feron was the youngest of he and his sister, so his sister inherited the throne," Rya paused, "but she decided she wanted to stay as 'princess'. I suppose Feron honoured her by staying as 'prince', also." [Y/n]'s gaze fell for a moment. Feron's sister had died, then... that must've been awful for him. "As for how our society works, Vihren is the name of the mountain our main camp is on, so we deem the kingdom as such, but we have many different camps dotted around the entire mountain range." [Y/n] nodded her head. "Vihren was established as a few tribes of creatures decided they didn't want to live in fear of Kutelo any longer.  They chose a representative of each tribe, and those representatives came to live in a small camp here.  The original leaders are mostly long gone.  The one exception is Al - he's been here for hundreds of years, though none of us are quite sure how long exactly..."

"Al?!" [Y/n] said in surprise.  "But... he and Hetti were brother and sister... does that mean Hetti is also...?"

"Faeries are usually born from nature.  They can also be created, and technically can have parents, but they are most often created by a natural entity.  He and Hetti came from the same ancient oak, so Al deemed Hetti as his sister, but Hetti was born hundreds of years after him," Rya explained.  [Y/n] nodded slowly, rubbing her neck.  Another question came to mind.