Her heart drummed wildly within her petite breast as she moved ever closer to what she'd been searching for for so long. Each and every step was careful and cautious, as though the blossoming young maiden were treading on a marbled floor covered in shards of broken glass. Twin peaks swiveled this way and that atop her poll, ever alert and aware of every sound that dared to echo into the still and cold winter air. From the soft sound of snow falling to the blanketed earth as the boughs of the trees gave beneath the weight that they'd supported until they no longer could to the faintest thrilling of songbirds somewhere in the nearby trees... Even the soft crunch of the snow as she walked almost gingerly, hesitantly towards the borders of the one place she knew she should be as far away from as she could possibly be, startled the midnight maiden. Despite her graceful strides and the tenderness with which she moved, she could not help feeling just how stark she was against the winter backdrop. She felt so exposed... so vulnerable... Long, silken tresses brush softly against her elegantly arched nape and wrapped themselves around her hocks as the zephyrs stirred around the maiden, their touch warm as they did their best to comfort the sabled fae. On any other day, their soothing caresses would have offered her a sense of security and solace... but not today.

I shouldn't even be here... Grandfather would be so worried.... Maybe she doesn't even want me... She'd left the protective borders the deep valley before the sun had begun to rise, before even the darkness of the night had begun to fade and the starts started hiding away from the early dawn that was only mere hours away. She'd skirted the treeline that marked the edge of the meadow and braved the cold and dark mountain pass, the place where she'd first caught the smallest hint of a scent that had haunted her dreams long ago, when she'd been nothing more than a filly barely one year of age. It belonged to a face that was all but clear to Chiyoko, a face that she hadn't seen in years and was just as elusive in her dream realm as it was in her reality. It hadn't been easy for the midnight maiden, knowing that her mother had left her behind in their family's homeland, despite that fateful afternoon when she'd promised the girl that she would return before the sun would set behind the mountains. Young Chiyoko had loved and cherished her mother as most all young girls did and she she'd thought nothing of her mother's words, hadn't even considered the possibility that the mare of brandished gold would leave her in the metaphorical rear view mirror of her life. She had trusted her mother without question, believing that there was no way Talien would have just up and vanished... She had, though. And it had been the young girl's grandparents who had been there to raise and nurture and love her where her own mother could not - or would not, she never really knew if it was by choice or not that the ghost of a mare had left her behind.

Each and every day she grew older and wiser, her mind steadily growing with the knowledge that she gained in almost each and every moment, she had always felt that prick of unknowing and sorrow to her heart and soul. She'd asked the stars in the blue-black heavens why her mother never came home that day or any day thereafter. She'd asked them why it was that she had been so easily forgotten by the mare that had carried her in her womb, gave life to her and raised her like any good mother for the first year of her life. So, why then had she gone and never sought out the midnight maiden? Had Chiyoko done something to cause her mother to leave her? Had she truly even loved the girl to begin with? With every question that echoed within her mind and her heart, her unease grew as did her emotions. She was confused, nervous, fearful... Would she come to find the midnight maiden that tread ever carefully into the dale, or would she stay away in unspoken and unseen yet certainly not unfelt rejection of the child she had raised? The zephyrs began to wrap around her lithe frame tighter, their movements increasing in speed, causing her tresses to wrap around her arched nape and hind legs as her heart began to pound a little faster. Then, she stops in her tracks as she appears atop a small ridge, crystal blue gaze tracing the winter scenery before her as she found herself within enemy territory, midnight skin gleaming in the dull light of the early afternoon, sable forelock tumbling down the bridge of her face to hide her perfect white star. The winds brought to her the confirmation that she sought as the unforgettable scent of her mother drifted into quivering nares. Her heart continued to race, conflicted and uncertain, senses at their highest. Perhaps this was all a mistake, perhaps she should have never sought out the mare of brandished gold.

Perhaps she should just turn back now...