Taking Flight

Arinelle dreamed of flying. Great, glorious wings of golden light sprouting from her back. The wind in her face. The cityscape of Novandria spread out beneath her, glittering in the dark.

She felt free! The weight of gravity no longer holding her down. The weight of expectation so far below her.

Duty. Responsibility. The destiny that called to her, though she wasn’t yet sure what it was.

She didn’t want to escape it. She didn’t seek to fly away from it. She merely sought a moment of respite. Of relaxation. Of nothing but this moment and the sky and the wind and the city lights in the darkness before dawn.

The sun began to rise, far in the distance. Arinelle watched it with wonder. The dawning of a new day never failed to take her breath away as color and light swept over the world once again. As the rays peeked over the horizon and lit the sky, her golden wings glittered, flashed, then vanished as she plummeted back toward the ground.

--

She woke with a start, looking around her dark room. She could hear the rectory beginning to stir and the pre-dawn light filtering through her curtains told her it was time to wake for the day. Rubbing her face, she took a deep breath and tossed back the covers. For a moment, she could have sworn the flash of a golden feather fell from the bedsheets. She hopped from the bed and shook out the covers, then looked beneath the bed, but, try as she might, she could not find a trace of it.

Shaking her head, she tidied her room and began to prepare for the day, though the feeling of flying was never far from her thoughts.