Midday

Many emotions clashed inside her mind. Was it really dead? How? Why did she cared? The creature was just lying there. Her father didn't even had the percussion to recover his blade. Just as she stared at the dead body that lied over the ground she couldn't advert the hoof of her father, who with unused strength pulled her out of the house.

"Come on Windsong let's go!!!"

     Before she could think anything else both of them were already taking flight, and from the height she could see her little shack as it was being engulfed by fire. Just as every other house in town. Smoke was rising from the ground, occluding the sunlight, and on the other islands of firm ground, fire was shining above them like if they were flying braziers as far as her sight could see. Screams and metal clashes resounded in the distance, and a general noise of drums, bells and trumpets could be heard in the background as the helpless villagers tried to advert of an attack that was already in process. Windsong felt dizzy just by realizing how large the battle was. The fire hadn't just come to her island. It was in all the world now.

     Around them, figures moved and dodged in the black clouds, leaving only whirls of wind behind them. They moved and turned, yelled and soared before being lost in the smoke again, like pony sized flies in the middle of a black mist. She tried to follow them with her eyes, but in a moment they became too many to count. From time to time, other kind of figures appeared through the smoke, fast diving from the heights like arrows and taking down the other ones who were flying more erratically. Windsong stared baffled at them. They were fast, aimed and made a whistling noise while they fell. Just as the one that had destroyed her home.

As she saw them start to fall in groups that formed small rains, she thought of the size of the creature's wings…

"WATCH OUT!" her father suddenly took her off course and dodged. A second later, a black figure passed them soaring like a lightning of shadow, making that whistling noise while it left a whirl of smoke behind it. Windsong was about to ask, but then her father pushed her again. "Dodge!"

     More of them started to fall. From the blackness, the figures of the enemy began to rain around like if they were aimed towards them. Windsong didn't had time to say anything before her father began to drag her around. He started to twist and turn in manners that only his fully developed wings could carry him, but she as a filly began to fall back. Either way that wasn't impediment for her new burst of energy. Inside her the fire was roaring, consuming her soul with every new maneuver. It didn't matter that her muscles ached or her lungs burned, she hadn't ever felt so alive, as if she could order her body to do anything, and it would obey her!

     But her luck wasn't infinite, and even though her father was putting a tremendous effort in evading, the weight of having to carry her daughter around was what ultimately doomed them. Windsong didn't felt the one that hit them, at least not directly, but as she suddenly found herself whirling without control, the almost painful sound of armor at splintering filled her ears and a warm liquid stained her face. Just as her wings were able to fight the momentum of the force that had set her off course, something hit her body and squashed her against it. Windsong hit her head against it, and only by miracle she didn't lose her conscience. The world started to spin around, and a sensation of sickness sparked behind her eyes, but somehow something inside her put that to rest and returned the sense of direction.

     When she recovered she found herself lying on the grass, and watching at what surely was another island, floating amidst the fire and smoke. There were houses at some distance, but those had suffered the same fate as hers and the whole town was ablaze. She tried to stand up, but her left side hurt, and her wing felt as if it had been twisted in a manner no limb should be able to. The moment she tried to display it to fly away, the pain was such that she almost fell unconscious. It probably was broken.

     This was bad. Not only was she stranded in a torched island in the middle of a battle, but she was alone now. Her father lost during the confusion of the attack… Speaking of such.

"Dad?" she called, but the sounds of the carnage were her only answer. "Dad!" she called louder, but her own voice seemed to get lost in the vastness of the world.

     Windsong turned around, trying to locate whatever she could recognize in order to know where she was, but to no use. Everything looked the same: ravaged and on fire. The only thing that could be seen were the thousands of flying things that battled and revolted in the sky, like a swarm of flies, praying upon rotten food.

     Windsong stared at it for a moment, then resolved to continue looking for her father. This wasn't the time nor the place to marble at the maximal expression of death. She had to find her father and she had to find him fast-

     Something landed on the island. The being released a sustained whistle while it flew and shook the earth at contact. Windsong didn't have to look at it to know that the same kind of creature that had destroyed her home was now in land. The first one was accompanied by another, and another, and after that several creatures started to fall upon the place, over the torching town where they created even more explosions of fire and lightning. Windsong looked at where the creatures had started to descend, and wondered if she could sneak through them, but in that moment something else called her attention.

     Just at the entrance of the first house, that had been toppled down and was burning, a beam shook with a fickle movement. Windsong immediately jumped into guard stance, and stared at the burning wood as it lied there, inert. She waited for a couple of seconds, and was about to disregard it when another movement confirmed that there was something below that trunk.

     With care, and a stick strong enough that she found a few yards away from the place, Windsong narrowed to the moving beam. The trunk tried to rose up, but after a second yielded. She jumped back when it seemed like it could come out of there, but dismissed it when the beam returned to that lying stance, and continued narrowing. She was almost on top of it. The fire inside her was screaming to her conscience to do it. To kill it! To taste blood! She jumped over the beam. The branch was being wielded in her mouth as a mace and was ready to squash anything that was below the-

     Her courage suddenly extinguished. The branch fell from her mouth, and her face, fierce and feral, dropped when she discovered who was under the consuming beam. His armor had been shattered, and the shredded pieces of metal were stuck in his skin, that was sipping red. On his side, just below the right wing, a splinter so thick it could be used as a stake, was meeting his flesh, and the red had spread to his feathers, tainting them almost to the tip of his limb. Reflecting in his face all the pain that he was feeling, her father gasped when he saw her.

"Windsong!" he tried to exclaim, but was only able to whisper for the pain. "Are you alright child?"

     Windsong didn't answered, The shock was too heavy for her even to know what to think.

"D-dad?" she muttered as well with a broken voice. Denial was what followed. "A-are y-you alright?"

"I'm afraid not, child" he said before grunting in pain. "I'm not gonna make it…" a bloody cough came out of his lips. "You need to go, child. There isn't much time…"

"No dad, don't die!" she cried, tears of despair already watering her eyes. "Not you!"

"Windsong!" he tried to reach out a hoof but both were under the beam. "I'm done… You need to live… For me-" something in the distance interrupted them. The sound of a house being toppled down, but this time without the noise of an impact. Strange voices could be heard in the distance. Windsong returned to her father, even though those voices could be heard every time closer. "Go child" he nodded away. "Go, for Angel's sake!"

     Something was broken a few yards away, just around the corner. Windsong would have argued with him to the last moment, but in that instant her self preservation instinct acted for her, and she fled to the nearest wall and hid beneath it.

     Again that sound of something being broken reached her ears, accompanied this time by the distinctive noise of a mare's scream. Immediately afterwards the frontage of the next house went down, and a female hippogriff leaped forward, trying to fly away only to be followed by one of those creatures, that emerged from the flames as if it were a demon. The hippogriff, as soon as she found herself in the open, began to take flight, but the creature, extending its vast wings as well, caught up to her in no time, and dragging her by the tail returned her to the ground once more. The hippogriff hit the grass with a gasp of pain, but that was the least of her problems. At that second, a spear had appeared wielded by the monster in the other of its frontal claws, and just as the hippogriff had the time to look up and take air the tip was already aimed for her, and then-

     Windsong couldn't watch it. She returned back to her hide as the screams of the hippogriff were suddenly silenced and imagined a red liquid flowing through the ground with unnatural freedom. The weapon of the creature made another disgusting noise as it was retrieved from its victim's body, and a roar of victory filled the air. The beast exclaimed something in its strange language, but it was too far away for Windsong to understand. The only thing that was present in her mind in that moment was the picture of the creature savagely murdering that innocent mare.

     Windsong peeked again. The creature was secluded in smoke also, but when a wind started to blew, carried by the endless sky in the background, its cover slowly creeped away. At sight the terror that had been murdering her people since she had memory was revealed to Windsong.

     It had a shape resembling to an equine, but far larger. Normal pegasus and griffin would only reach it to its shoulders if not just slightly above, and the wings that were folded at its sides, the ones that she'd seen with membranes when fully displayed, presented patterns of feathers that shone with the fire in a strange subtle dance of colors. Its head was strongly resembling an equine, but it had membrane ears covered in fur, and, differently from the other one, it had two pair of horns, one above and the other at the height of its jaw, like some kind of large fangs. Behind these, a long mane extended down its shoulders and ended just slightly above its knees. That detail baffled Windsong completely, for the creature's mane, tangled and sweaty from frantic physical activity, displayed many colors in its pattern, just as it flowed and diverted in strange braids all along its length, a wild hassock of hair and feathers that also matched another one that started near the end of its reptile-like tail.

     It was wearing a golden armor and a strange chain at its neck that joined in a ruby in the middle of her chest, and all of it that could be seen between the scarce metal plates was covered in a strange mix between fur and scales that presented various stains of red, even in its mane, some of them still flowing down fro cuts in the strange creature's skin.

     The hind legs of the creature were just like a griffin, but unlike the griffin's those claws looked as if they could tear through flesh and armor with unused ease, and the forelegs were a strange combination of talons and hooves, like some kind of grotesque mutation that had turned them into horrible looking prehensile appendixes.

     The creature stared down at the hippogriff's corpse, which fortunately was hidden from view by a light elevation of the terrain. In its eyes a fire of violence burned bright, but differently from the first one she'd encountered, not without the distinctive look of a creature that has self awareness. The savage being looked at it with an indecipherable look for a moment before folding its spear, a golden piece that presented a shining blade at its end, under its wing.

     Windsong stared at the creature as it turned away, and looked as if it was readying to leave but her stupefaction prevented it to. Before it took off the filly slipped with a loose sone and fell to the ground. She tried to prevent it, but in her desperation she graved a torching stick. The contact with the burning wood and her fur being set alight was too much for her. Before she could silence herself a loud squeal of pain came out of her mouth.

     Windsong then fell to the ground. In that moment a thousand things went through her mind. Had it seen her? Was it too late? How could she’d been so foolish? And most important, could she run away? She hadn’t even seen it, and she know that it was turning its head to her.

     But her body had its own agenda, and before the creature’s sight could fix upon her, her legs came to life and pulled her back into her hiding place. She crouched before the burning remains of the house once again and waited, hoping as hard as she could that it hadn’t seen her. The creature, hidden from view, didn’t seem to react for a while, and after a minute or two the filly was emboldened enough to peek over her cover. It wasn’t there.

     If she hadn’t have reasons to fear, this one was a very powerful one. She felt how Windsong’s heart accelerated, and her breath became unstable with uncertainty. Her legs slowly backed away, and while the sounds of the carnage that was happening around were ever present, some kind of tense silence was floating in the air. She looked around nervously, but to no avail, her ears were risen in alert to spot it, but nothing that close was making a noise whenever it was.

     A cough made her jump. Under the beam, her father had given out his position. Her father… He was still alive! Windsong immediately headed for him, but even though the almighty impulse of coming back to him filled her thoguths, her reason forbid her to when a powerful flapping of wings revealed the position of her stalker.

     Rising a powerful wind with countless sparks from the fire, the creature appeared from over the roof, or rather just the remains, and glided down with unbelievable speed, breaking wood and stone as it landed just inches away from where the sound had came from, spear rose high. Windsgon had already stuck to her hideout once again, but in that instant, all hope of getting back with her father had faded away, just as an increasing sensation of desperation was replacing it.

     The creature had stopped where it was, and was looking around for the source, apparently without finding its prey. At first it looked as if it was about to desist, but when her father panted again, the being was immediately over him with the spear held high. Ready to kill.

     Windsong didn’t believe what she saw. She didn’t want it to. Just as she peeked over her cover once again and was ready to see it, surprise seized her eyes. The creature had stopped, in its face nothing less than absolute surprise. It didn’t made any sense, but either way she couldn’d do anything before it was done.

“Ní féidir liom a chreidiúint é…” it spoke with an unmistakably feminine voice as she lowered her weapon. “Claíomh Spéir, cad iontas!" she exclaimed with a tone that Windsong could recognize as sarcasm and smiled with malevolence. "Dúirt mé leat go raibh an muid ag dul chun freastal ar arís..."

     Her father tried to move, but let out a growl of pain when the oppressive weight of the beam held him still.

"Níl mé sásta ná tú, Brisselle…" he said, surprisingly in its language. “Ach ar a laghad, chríochnaigh sé ar an dóigh a raibh tú" he spitted with contempt.

“Go deimhin…" her smile disappeared as she put one of her frontal legs on the beam, making him groan again. “Tá an t-am tagtha chun tú féin agus do neasghaolta go bás” she rose the spear once more. "Tá déanta agat síochána le do bandia?"

     Windsong couldn't see him, but by the space between phrases she could imagine him glaring back at her.

"Cad atá á ag fanacht leat do?" he asked with the little strength he had. Brisselle just looked back at him, unshaken. "A dhéanamh-!”

     And the spear descended behind the log, making a heinous noise as it teared through flesh, though Windsong tried by any means to set that thought aside. The creature made a little effort when the metal touched his meat, and twisted it in order to retrieve its blade, making that nightmarish sound once more and taking it out covered in red. Then it folded the weapon under one of her wings once more, cleaning its blade with her white feathers.

“Lig sé a bheith ar do bhealach a, ansin" she muttered as she turned away. "Amadán damnaigh…"

     But it wasn’t over. At least not for Windsong. Out of the many disgraces that life can depare to a misadventured soul as she was, the death of someone so close to her as was him shouldn’t be one that a filly should suffer. Yet there she was, walking away as carefree as if she’d just crushed a tiny insect, and there was he, the only stallion that had cared for her since she could recall and now would never see her grow old, or make friends, or tug her to bed, or be anything else than a memory, a chance long lost of what could have been, taken away by the cold reality of a balde of steel and a heartless enemy which didn’t even cared that she were taking away the only pony in the world who had ever been good to her.

     And perhaps the creature was unaware of it, but in the moment all of this dawned on her, something inside her broke. Only the fire was left, and it finally took over.