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 Posted: Mon Jun 17, 2013 3:35 pm
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Posted: Mon Jun 17, 2013 3:36 pm
 Astraea had been walking for a few days without much rest. She had stumbled upon a Kalona herd and had barely managed to escape. She spent three days running, barely pausing to drink in the streams she crossed and use a little of her healing magic on herself.
She was at the end of her endurance. Truth be told, she had past that end a while ago, but her body was continuing to plod along anyway. It wasn't that she was delirious, she had just turned the thinking part of her mind off. She had to do that or the pain of aching legs, half healed bites and scrapes, and the terrible itching where her wings were trying to regrow the primary feathers that had been ripped out by one of the Kalona would be intolerable.
Astraea had been lucky in finding some wooded area she could loose the blood thirsty herd in. She once again wished she had a herd to belong to, others who could all band together to protect the whole. But she never had. She hadn't every had anyone but herself.
She had met her mother once, but that hadn't gone so well. Her mother was . . . well, she wasn't at all concerned with Astraea. It seemed the only think Leilani was concerned with was finding a flutter. Her daughter didn't understand why, but it was obvious she was only an inconvenience to her mother.
She hadn't ever managed to find her father. But he was only a passing presence in her mother's life. Astraea had occasionally met other Soquili, but was mostly dismissed, sometimes chased away. Occasionally she was treated nicely enough, even traded with, particularly for the healing magic of her horn, but she was never welcomed into a herd.
Astraea had come to accept that she wasn't really worth anything. She had been abandoned by everyone in her life and no one had any use for her. She knew she had no value and nothing was going to change. But she couldn't just lay down and die. Even if no one else would ever accept her, she could survive on her own.
On her dark days, she wondered why she bothered, but mostly Astraea didn't dwell on it. She might not have the best life, but it was the only life she had. And she could survive on her own, she always had. It was, honestly, all she knew.
But sometimes . . . it was lonely.
On this day, however, it was mostly just exhausting. She had stopped paying attention to where she was going most of a day ago. Astraea had been lucky not to run into someone or something who would kill her for her lack of vigilance. She didn't know there were others around. And she didn't hear or see the small clearing before she bumbled into it.
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