Robin McKinley - Pegasus

She was not going to be able to sleep. If her ears were ringing with other people’s words, her mind was ringing with her own. She paced her bedroom restlessly; she had packed and repacked and re-re-repacked what she was taking with her; changed her mind dozens if not hundreds of times about the individual gifts she was bringing. She had had the various choices laid out on a shelf in her wardrobe, where she could be indecisive without troubling any of her attendants. Would the pegasus queen like the gold chain, or the silver and gold one better? Was the little mother-of-pearl bowl—light enough for pegasus hands—really grand enough for Lrrianay, even with the sparkle of tiny diamonds in a ring below its rim? Grand—oh, grand was another of those cumbersome, confusing human things, like choosing the clothes to take with her to make her look like a princess. What did you give people who didn’t want anything?

Since she was at that end of the room, she opened her wardrobe and stared at the things she wasn’t taking. I am not changing my mind again, she thought, as she stared at the embroidered ribbons she wasn’t taking for Ebon’s little sister. They were extremely pretty, but Sylvi thought bringing human embroidery to a pegasus was probably like giving farm boots to a dancer. She thought of her farmer uncle Rulf telling her how his eldest son, who had never cried about anything, cried the first time he saw pegasi, flying with the sunset gilding their wings. Sylvi couldn’t remember the first time she’d seen pegasi; for her at the palace they’d always been there. But she was going to be alone with them for almost three weeks; alone with creatures so beautiful and strange that they made a little boy cry for their beauty and strangeness.

Her eyes drifted to a glint from farther inside the wardrobe. Until a few weeks ago her practise gear had all hung on a peg in the armoury, but a few days after Diamon had told her that pound for pound she was tougher than her brothers, he had come up behind her at the end of their session together, as she was shrugging out of her extremely beat-up leather breastplate. Her sword was already rubbed clean of dust and dirt and hanging up, but he lifted it down again and once she was free of her armour, handed it to her. Puzzled, she grasped the familiar hilt and accepted the scabbard with the other hand. She’d graduated to a real sword a few months ago, even if it wouldn’t have been much more than a dagger in Danacor’s hand; Diamon said that he’d known the young woman who’d last carried it, and that it had been responsible for the deaths of at least two taralians. Lucretia liked to tease her that it was the sword that young Razolon had run his first Speaker through with; it was probably almost old enough, although very plain for a sovereign’s heir, even a twelve-year-old one.

“Take it back to the palace with you,” said Diamon. “Time you started learning to live with it. The sword is your weapon, clearly, just like it’s your mum’s, and a soldier or a princess should be ready. You don’t want to have to come pelting out to the armoury when the battalion of rocs is sighted.” He smiled, but his eyes were serious.

No sword practise for three weeks, she thought. No thumping and being thumped, and getting dust up your nose and in your eyes; her pony would be baffled but pleased by an unexpected three weeks’ holiday; her father’s dogs would be less pleased that she didn’t appear to take them for walks.... At least no council meetings, she thought. She would miss Nanthir’s next report from the Kishes—but she’d also miss the Chaugh ambassador’s daughter’s birthday. She was going to be all alone....

I’m going to see the Caves , she thought, before her courage failed her. The Linwhialinwhia Caves. The Caves that I’ve been longing to see for years—that I’ve known— known —that I never would see. I’ll probably even get to taste fwhfwhfwha.

Eventually she climbed into her bed and lay stiffly down. Last night in a bed for three weeks, she thought. Last night indoors. I hope it doesn’t rain all the time.

There would be hundreds of people to watch them set out tomorrow—far more than at any mere village festival. There was no centuries’-old traditional script for this occasion either. “Be your father’s daughter,” her mother had said, smiling. “And try not to worry too much.”

Sylvi gave a little gulp of laughter.“Well, that’s not being my father’s daughter!”

It was a fine clear day for flying, the sky blue and very far away in that come-chase-me way that always made Sylvi especially yearn for wings—and almost no wind, at least not on the ground. She had learnt, by flying with Ebon, that what was going on a few spans straight up might be quite a bit different from what was happening standing on the ground, but the few wisps of cloud she could see didn’t seem to be moving very fast. There were three draia —one for luggage, including gifts—and twenty-two pegasi to carry them, plus a dozen more who would fly with them.

They collected themselves in the Inner Court, those who were going, where the private good-byes and good wishes would be said: the pegasi, her father and mother, Hirishy, Danacor and Farley, and Thowara and Oyry—Garren and Poih were on patrol, and Lrrianay would meet them on arrival—and half a dozen human attendants, including Fazuur, Minial and Ahathin. But there were more pegasi than humans. It felt very strange to be outnumbered . . . and she was soon to be alone with . . . She looked at Ebon, who was looking at her. Ebon had never given any sign of minding being far more outnumbered than she was now when they went to a festival, but she wondered what he might think about it that he had never told her. And he had never been alone with . . . Again she stopped her thoughts.

She glanced around; a good half of these pegasi she didn’t recognise. Several of them were noticeably broader and sturdier than the average, although none was bigger than Ebon. They all seemed bigger to her today than they usually did. Once her father left, and she was . . . She silenced her thoughts yet again. The Caves! Think about seeing the Caves with Ebon.

All of these pegasi, when they caught her eye, nodded, and said, “ Fwif ,” which was an honorific like “lord” or “lady.” She nodded back and said, carefully,“ Wheehuf, ” which was a polite greeting like “good day, sir” or “good day, madam.” The pegasi rarely used gender specifics, which was one thing she didn’t have to try to learn; wheehuf would do for everyone. And it was one of her better pegasi words; not only was it one of the harmless ones that everyone knew and could remember from one day to the next, she could say it without Ebon making faces. She had said this to him a few days before and he’d wheeled his ears mockingly and replied, Choose the mountain you have to fly over, as they say. I don’t want to wear myself out.

The crowd was waiting in the Outer Great Court—no, the crowd began in the Outer Great Court. A Silversword major had informed the king that much of the huge space inside the Wall was full of humans wanting a glimpse of the historic event, many of whom had travelled a long way for the opportunity. As a result the human king had asked and the pegasi agreed to fly one complete circuit inside the Wall before heading northeast toward the Starclouds. Sylvi discovered that she was trembling. She walked out through the high wide arch on her father’s arm, with the queen and the heir behind them. The crowd roared, and the sound was bewildering. She didn’t understand; what were they roaring about?