Feather | A Day Carved from Rising Winds

That was a barren age of old, a time when the pale dawn had yet to pierce the cold night.

Warriors clad in iron had never beheld the open sky. Sharp winds held aloof the frozen heavens above.

Warriors were meant to obey their charge. To smother, in their very cradles, those rebels skulking in darkened alleys, those who dared shake the towering spire.

Yet at the songs that flowed from the strings of that young bard's lyre, the warrior laid down sword and blade.

Not by tongues of treason beguiled, nor by promises of illusion swayed,

the warrior yielded only to the caged bird's yearning for the sky, a hunger writ in the blood of every living creature.

Be they paupers, bowed by bitter winds and clinging to the side of the boy,

or maidens, wandering through pallid plains, calling upon a thousand winds and blossoms;

Be they small sprites of the wind, hearts stirred by the boy's music,

or soldiers no less hungered than those they were bid to subdue;

Be they old poets bereft of their eyes, or craftsmen made wanderers, shorn of their hands,

or the countless sick and ailing souls, their names lost to the wild winds' howl;

All alike, steeped in that song — gentle as the morning breeze, warm as dawn light seeping into cold nights —

would lift their eyes as one and gaze upon the sky, still far above.

Even she, the God King's most favored confidant, that taciturn, iron-cold huntress, grim of tongue yet true of heart...

Surely, 'twas but by duress of her erstwhile master that her fair hands were stained with innocent blood.

For how else might a clutch of soft-spoken words have turned her away from the tyrant, and set her feet upon the path of those who stood against him?

Though ineloquent by nature, she too must have longed, like her companions, for a gentler dawn to come...

And so the silent warrior cast aside both duty and name, weaving her snare from within the shadows,

Gathering, for the boy who sang of morning, the winds scattered across the long night, until at last they rose to blow against the towering wall of wind.

"Let the nameless flowers kiss away your tears, and grieve not for the parting that tomorrow brings."

"Until the breath of dawn fades my name, and reveals for you the light that is true."