"Flight" and "Remembrance"- Brea, Kira
Brea keeps a mental catalogue- always changing, and too often shrinking- of places on Thra that the garthim cannot reach them, places where it is possible to stand still and unafraid and simply breathe. The small, barren islands dotting the turbulent waters off the Sifan coast are little more than rocks, unsuited to life, yet precious for the freedom they provide. The salt-air smells of summers spent digging her fingers into the sand searching for shells to match to the drawings in a book, and she tightens her arms around the stirring bundle strapped to her chest, tamping down the dull, well-trod grief that she may never know such happy times.
With another deep breath, she unfurls her gossamer wings in the sunlight and feels her feet lift from the ground.
The Vapra have many traditions, but the first flight is an informal one- merely something passed fondly from mother to child. The Vapra love the air more than any other clan, after all, and it would not do for one of their own to fear it. So they introduce it slowly, so by the time their daughters’ wings begin to bloom, they have grown to yearn for it. Some credit it as their earliest memory, though such things are more accessible within a dreamfast than through conscious thought. It is a moment of celebration, of bonding, of the family.
This should not have been Brea’s to pass on- especially alone- but it will have to be.
She kisses Kira’s downy forehead, and smiles at the wonder in her wide, amber eyes. It may well be that the only safety she will ever know is in the air, but in her more optimistic moments, Brea hopes for better for her. She hopes that someday she will know the exhilaration of flying as gelfling are meant to- chasing birds, grasping at clouds, laughing as Brea and her sisters once had. She hopes that someday Kira can carry her own child into the sky and look down upon a peaceful, green world. She hopes for so, so many things.
Whatever is to come, if nothing else, she hopes that Kira remembers this.