Chapter Text
It’s evening when the wind picks up, twisting around the citadel and tumbling the birds around. The sparrow sits on a ledge, plucking at her guitar idly. The citadel is warm, the kind of warmth that seeps into your core and makes you feel warm all the way through. This wind, however, was cold. She is not a fan of being cold when she isn’t racing.
The other racers are migrating into the temple, and she decides that sounds like a good idea. She hops off of the ledge, spreading her cape to catch the wind, and letting it carry her to the temple. Another racer is behind her, and they share a friendly honk as they pass her. The sparrow chirped back, angling her cape to land on the stone floor of the temple. The other racer darts ahead, disappearing into the low passageway to their left. she takes her time to gaze at the statue of the twins in the center of the room fondly. They stand tall and proud, confident and lively. She glances around, seeing no one around, and bows to the statue. Turning around she walks to the low passageway.
A furious gust of wind blows into the temple from outside, strong enough to blow the doors at the opposite side open. She is caught off guard and looses her footing as the wind slips under her cape and tumbles her across the floor. disoriented, she tries to stand up, and the wind pushes her again. The sparrow does not realize how far she had been moved until there is the heart wrenching feeling of the floor disappearing from beneath her feet. She is falling, falling, sliding along snow on her back, and then she is being tossed among the clouds. She catches a brief glimpse of the front of the temple, and then there is nothing but white.
The sparrow hates the feeling of falling. She hates the feeling of not being in control of her flight as the thick clouds buffet her downwards, aided by the wind. She thanks the elders as there is finally an end to the tunnel and she is able to regain her balance to slow her descent onto the hard stone ground. Once she picks herself up and brushes the dust off, she surveys her surroundings. It’s a miracle her mask wasn’t knocked off in the chaos.
There is no wind here, yet she can still hear the howling of a storm. Naturally curious, she follows the noise and finds a wooden platform overlooking a huge whirlwind of clouds that glow a sickly green. It is mesmerizing with a terrible beauty. She sinks to her knees and grips tightly to the edge as she peers over. She looks down, in a trance, and then the world pitches and she is falling once more. She thought the wind was at its strongest earlier, but how wrong she is was. She could do nothing except curl into a ball and pray the storm be over as it tore through her hair, wrenching her cape this way and that. A dizzying drop presented itself, and the clouds took the opportunity to thrust her down, down, until there was a hard impact upon the unforgiving ground.