*Oakleaf Evolution. This was her birthtitle and so her legal name... legality, wonderful. The Pegasus opened her eyes... the light of dawn was specatacular and it took her a time to get used to this. That very day, Oakleaf was due to face that same word, she was to be put on trial for many crimes, many she had committed and a few she had not.
The small Pegasus stood in the stocks, stocks designed to hold a grown man over in a humiliating position, to force them to bend over. For the child it was much different - she was very short, even for her age (The Pegasi of the White Mountains took usually till they were twenty or so to become full-grown), and had the look of one who has been kept in the dark, underfed, for a long time and suddenly released with no food at all. She had to stand on the tips of her hooves to avoid strangling herself on the wood and metal neck-hold. Her blood-red mane hung before her face.
Standing there in silence, wondering vaugely about the trial that was to take place at dusk, Oak spotted something shiny! At first she thought it was her sword, and that would indeed have been a miracle. But it was only a hairpin, left by the elderly lady who sold quilts near the stocks.
Wait a second...
A hairpin! Silently, swiftly, Oak tried to reach it with her hands... oh wait... duh... they were in the stocks! Reaching out one dusty, large hoof she scraped it over in her direction... then, cleverly nudging it over the space of about three minutes into the slightly tangled blue fur, lifts the hoof up as high as she can, and grasps the pin in her teeth. The child, shocked at her luck - she has never in her life been so fortunate-- well, once -- passes it from mouth to hand and, after much chafing at her wrist and scraping at the old manacle which remained, broken, on her right wrist, managed to insert the pin into a lock. The next part took a good long time, but sure enough, one lock popped. That was enough to force the binding board up enough to free her bad hand, her right hand. After that it was only about a minute before she was completely free, and the hinge swung open. She stood there, rubbing her neck and wrists for a time.
If I had money, Oakleaf thought,
I'd leave some for that human. And then she ran, ran before spotting the gates to the villlage... Her silver wings spread and a marvellous sensation swam through her, she was soaring out over the wall, and she lost track of time.
Now it was the same time as Shakht watched the black gryphon approaching the girl... and a sudden shock came to Oak. She knew not whence it came, but she stopped abrubtly... while fifty feet up in the air. She could not move at all... it was as if somebody had hit her over the head with a mallet.
Oakleaf plummeted towards the mountains, just at the spot where they gryphons and humans sat.*
[[Yes, there is a reason, a VERY good reason
]]