Marcus
The Citadel’s spires fell away behind him, shrinking against the endless white. Marcus cut through the air with steady, powerful strokes, the wind threading cold fingers through his feathers. The world below was a hellscape, unbroken sprawl of snow and ice, glittering where the sun touched it, treacherous where shadows pooled—and he was seeing it with completely new eyes. While Noah and flown with him home from the shrine on the Sea of Glass, flying back out into the tundra left the youngling soaking it all in for what he felt was the first time.
The air was thin, the cold alive in its hunger. Below, jagged ice broke the surface in frozen teeth, and in the distance, something dark and slow moved across the drifts—too large for comfort, too far to identify with any accuracy, but the young hybrid guessed it was an ursur. They always lumbered across the tundra looking for their next meal—but whether it was a regular ursur, dangerous and wild, or a void-touched ursur, bloodthirsty and relentless, he didn’t know.
He banked left, away from the suspected ursur, following the line of a frozen river, every beat of his wings carrying him deeper into the tundra’s heart—and whatever waited for him there. After a few minutes past of flying, Marcus let his wings tip again and he angled closer to the earth. Movement caught his eye and he followed it. A snow hare darted across the snow and ice. A switch flipped within the young hybrid and he dove.
Powerful talons wrapped over the back of the hare’s neck and his wings flapped with hard, determined strokes to keep himself from crashing into the frozen ground. But the prey succumbed to him, and satisfaction rang through him brightly.
The air was thin, the cold alive in its hunger. Below, jagged ice broke the surface in frozen teeth, and in the distance, something dark and slow moved across the drifts—too large for comfort, too far to identify with any accuracy, but the young hybrid guessed it was an ursur. They always lumbered across the tundra looking for their next meal—but whether it was a regular ursur, dangerous and wild, or a void-touched ursur, bloodthirsty and relentless, he didn’t know.
He banked left, away from the suspected ursur, following the line of a frozen river, every beat of his wings carrying him deeper into the tundra’s heart—and whatever waited for him there. After a few minutes past of flying, Marcus let his wings tip again and he angled closer to the earth. Movement caught his eye and he followed it. A snow hare darted across the snow and ice. A switch flipped within the young hybrid and he dove.
Powerful talons wrapped over the back of the hare’s neck and his wings flapped with hard, determined strokes to keep himself from crashing into the frozen ground. But the prey succumbed to him, and satisfaction rang through him brightly.
I want you by my side
So that I never feel alone again
So that I never feel alone again
