Common

(recycled bc honestly no idea how to explain her sudden reappearance lol)

Everything was gone.

At least, everything that she had ever known and loved. Fire, the burning red hot flames still scorched their way across her memory, bringing to her olfactory sense the ghostly haunt of burning flesh and woodland smoke. The toxic fumes had burned her eyes as she had run blindly in what she hoped was the direction of the surfside, flames licking at her heels and embers sparking her pelt. She had seen him. Her brother... his lifeless body already charred by the fire's wrath, his face forever contorted in agony. It had spurred her on. As far as she knew the rest of the herd had been lost too, no doubt facing the same fate Valerio had; even now she could hear their cries above the ocean surf.

She had plunged into the dark waters, unsure of her own fate but determined not to become a victim to the hate and rage of the fire that burned her homeland into nothingness. For hours she struck out at the waters beneath her, fighting to keep her head above the ocean swell and using her own rage to propel her into the unknown. Hours it was, perhaps even days for in truth she lost all track of time as she focused on treading water and nothing else. The salt water stung her eyes and soaked her skin, its enveloping embrace threatening to overwhelm her and drag her into the depths but still she fought...

Then she heard it.

The exuberant cry of gulls as they soared above her, their wings outspread. They used the invisible currents of the winds to propel them, keep them high in the skies above her. Like the rushing winter waters they awoke her senses and her silver blue eyes saw it for the first time. Hazed by mist, the mountains reached for the heavens on the distant horizon. Land.

She had not known when first her feet felt the wet malleable sands beneath her, what lay ahead. Never had she seen the islands in the distance when so often she gazed over the rolling ocean from the beach at her home. Yet now, she could not be more happy... despite the sadness and defeat that clings to her mind, she was not ready to give up her life. She must live... if nothing else but because the others could not. Fate was a cruel mistress.

Utterly spent, she dragged herself from the ocean surf and fell upon the warm sands, her breath dragging ragged from her lungs. Her entire body ached, her legs pulsed beneath her as though she had run countless hours across the plains. Paper thin nostrils exhaled a heavy sigh as she allowed herself to succumb to the soothing warmth of the sun-heated sands. She rested.

It felt like hours she lay there on the sand as the sun dried her obsidian coat. Energy rebuilt itself within her, finally giving her the strength to rise and give her petite form a shake, riding the majority of the sand that still clung to her skin. Tiny ears stand at attention now amid the thick mantle of curling black tresses that crown her brow. Brilliant, multifaceted blue eyes gaze now upon the lands that lay beyond the beachscape. She could not yet see them, but she heard them... horses.

Relief flooded her very soul now as she moved cautiously away from the water's edge and beyond the dunes. Meadows and grasslands rolled before her, thick with green summer growth. A single dial flickers now as she observes them before her. Here and there, sparse and spread out they grazed or congregated together in small groups. The sight brought a smile to her lips. Whether like her, they were displaced nomads from other worlds, or actual residents to this land she did not yet know... but she would find out.

For now though, she allows herself to graze upon the emerald shoots of grass, savoring the rich sweet flavors of clover and rye that were so familiar to her. Perhaps soon she would approach them, or maybe one of them would approach her... that she did not know... but for now she stood on the outskirts, observing and contemplating what her next move should be...