"Respice post te! Hominem te esse memento. / Look behind you! Remember you are only a man." - words whispered to Roman generals during triumphs.

  Aurelia stood atop one of the rolling hills to the west of the sprawling city of Rome. A long stone bridge had been necessary to cross the Tiber river's currents, a feat so daunting that until recently, ferries would have been required to travel from one side to the other. One of the consuls of her youth had made it a defining project for the year in which he was in charge, and now a wide grey stone behemoth bridged the Roman side to the fields and hills beyond. It was upon one of these hills that Aurelia now stood.

  The passing wind tugged at the edges of her pink sto, and she absentmindedly shifted her feet as the light linen danced around her calves in the wind. The parting words of the priestess of Minerva had struck a chord within her, and had resonated with a deep-rooted feeling so long buried she had been inured to its call.

  She had wings. Well, obviously, but it really just remarkable just how little she thought of them as wings rather than burdens, or signifiers of her non-human nature. They were something that she had to be constantly mindful of when she was awake, to keep them tight to her body so as not to take more space than she needed, keep them drawn tight so as not bump into people or items off of tables. She spent so much of her day doing everything in her power to minimize their existence that it had become second-nature.

  But today she would change that.

  For the first time in what felt like a very, very long time, she began to unfurl her wings. Sensations not unlike stretching a limb one had slept on too long sizzled along her back. The pins and needles feelings of striking one's elbow in the right pce arced along her wings to her sides.

  It hurt so good.

  Fully extended as they were now, her wings reached far beyond the span of her arms. The passing breeze which had been tussling her sto began to catch along her feathers, and she leant forward slightly to resist the gentle push. She heard chirping, and a small nest halfway up a nearby tree caught her attention.

  Four small figures accompanied by one rger one were gathered in the nest. Aurelia watched as the mother pushed one of the chicks out of the nest and into the void below. It thrashed in the air as it fell, but after a moment it righted itself and was able to control it's descent and it nded on the ground below safely, though she could hear it's indignant cries from where she stood many meters away. The next one faired even better, able to right itself quickly, and even fly back up to the nest with it's mother. The third one joined it's sibling down below.

  The fourth one however, did not. Where the others had either flown back, or at least been able to nd safely, when the st chick was pushed from the nest it continued to fil wildly without control, unable to slow it's descent, it impacted the ground hard. Where the other two waited to gather their strength, the st chick y broken and motionless.

  Aurelia stared at the little thing for a long while. From her time spend in Ceres' groves, she had encountered the often stark realities which came with natural life, but she still mourned the little creature who would never fly.

  Fpping her wings didn't seem to be doing much. Outstretched as wide as they would go, and pumping with all her might, the only she seemed to happen was getting exhausted. She was heavy girl, she knew. Seven feet of well endowed woman was a lot to carry. Birds tended to have hollow bones, and their wings took up a much rge portion of their bodies, so it made sense why they could fly. But what about other flying creatures?

  There had been tales whispered about the Sword and Scroll, when the boasting was done, and it was time to scare the newly initiated with wild tales of fearsome monsters. Tales of great scaled wyrms who could fly as fast as a loosed arrow, and could grow to be the size of houses. Aurelia thought most of the details to be artful exaggeration. Tall tales to scare the newbies (like her!) or to make small children do their chores. But like most things, there had been an element of truth to them. She had asked the truly experienced adventurers who frequented the tavern about these supposed flying monsters, and maybe it had been their state of inebriation, or the fact that she hadn't been wearing much clothing, but they'd confided in her that some of the older ones had indeed seen flying wyrms. And had heard credible reports of great beasts whose size eclipsed that of a patrician's stable, though none had ever seen one like that in person.

  Those creatures could fly, but obviously would encounter the same problems as her. Too much body, not enough wing. So Aurelia set herself to experimenting.

  Running didn't seem to help, she had sprinted as fast as she could manage but still her feet stayed steady on the ground, no matter how hard she beat her wings. Jumping didn't do the trick either, though she leapt high into the air, she always came crashing back down to the ground beneath her. Running out of ideas, she stood in pce, squinting her eyes and scrunching her face in concentration. With a mighty beat of her wings, and a rush of air, she opened her eyes to find herself... standing as firmly on the ground as before.

  Aurelia looked back to the tree with the bird nest. The two which had nded safely on the ground had made their way back up into the nest. The family of one mother and a reduced three chicks chirped in a cheerful twiddling lilt, their fallen member seemingly forgotten. With one final idea lodged firmly in the fore of Aurelia's brain, she began to look for a suitable spot.

  Finding a high cliff hadn't been hard, Jupiter knew there where plenty of those around the seven hills of Rome. What had taken more time was finding a cliff that wouldn't kill her if she fell down. Maybe. It certainly looked high enough from her pce at its peak. All flying creatures needed to learn at some point, and if this didn't do the trick, Aurelia wasn't sure what would. She began to pace backwards from the edge, ensuring she would have plenty of room for a running start. When she had judged the distance far enough, she took in a deep breath, and closed her eyes in concentration. When she opened them again, she was as determined as she had ever been. With long, powerful strides she began to propel herself faster and faster, building up speed as she went. The edge rushed towards her, and with a mighty leap, she flung herself over the edge.

  It was a long way down, she could see as her eyes widened. And the ground below began to approach her much quicker than she would have liked. With a scream which would have fitted a girl half her age and a quarter her size, Aurelia began to plummet down towards the rocks beneath her.

  Thessa clutched her wooden crook to her chest and nervously gnced around herself. She hadn't heard any sounds of pursuit for a while, but that didn't mean that they weren't still following her. She had to push on. Her ears kept twitching back and forth in futile attempts to try and pick up any sound that didn't belong.

  Her legs burned with exertion, it took all of her willpower to keep from colpsing as she ran. They couldn't be behind her anymore, surely. It couldn't do any harm if she were to stop and rest a while.

  She brushed off the tempting thoughts and kept moving. If she stopped now she might well end up like the others, oh gods, the others. Images of blood soaked clothes and broken bodies filled her vision. Larran being run down, his wooden shield cttering to the ground, Dorin sprouting arrows from his back and colpsing, his blond hair turning red in a puddle of his own blood, Tevan's head rolling to a stop next to his own corpse, his eyes seeming to lock to hers despite the impossibility.

  She smmed into something hard, and rooted to the ground. Thessa bounced back, clutching the small horns which poked out of her hair. In her reverie she had ran straight into a tree, she grabbed her crook from off the ground and continue her run, now with one hand massaging the crown of her head.

  She burst from the trees and out into the open. All that stood between her and safety now were the hills leading into Rome proper. With her goal so close, a fresh burst of strength flooded her exhausted limbs. She just had to get a little further, just a little longer, just a little more.

  As Aurelia fell, she filed and shrieked. If this was some py to be performed by troubadours, this is where the hero would suddenly gain some ability, or the gods would intervene to save the day. But this is not a py, and the gods were not watching.

  Her wings fpped wildly, trying to gain some measure of control over her rapid plummet towards the ground below. Aurelia could see the very sudden stop in her very near future. She was almost resigned to it. She might survive the fall, she had chosen this cliff specifically because it was high enough for her to fall far enough to (hopefully) learn to fly, but not enough to reduce her to a sptter immediately. Plus, there was a road along the bottom, so maybe there would be enough foot-traffic for someone to be able to help her once she nded, or at least to collect her body.

  What she was not expecting, was for anyone else to witness this rather embarrassing affair. Below her she could see a figure darting along the dirt road, it was though Aurelia was living in slow motion. She could make out each step this person was taking as they ran, she could see the ridges and veins of each leaf as she passed by trees as she raced towards the ground. To her growing horror, she realized that she was going to nd on the poor thing. It was one thing to fail to fly, like the small chick she had watched before. But to take someone else with her was something else entirely.

  Just before she would have collided with the figure, her wings snapped out, and her stomach lurched.

  After a long second, Aurelia slowly cracked opened her eyes. She was motionless, which was something. And she could feel that all her arms and legs were in the right pces. Looking left and right, she could see her wings fully outstretched. Every few seconds they beat downward before returning to their original position. She fluttered her feet, and could feel them floating in the air. She looked down and marveled at what she saw. She was levitating a few feet above the ground, hanging in the air as though by a rope.

  Looking down, beyond her feet, y a slowly stirring body. It's off white robes were stained red with blood, and a long wooden crook was scattered to the side. Her wings folded to her sides, and at st she hit the ground. She rushed to the person's side, and rolled them over. Now she could see that the person in front of her was a woman, a tauren woman. Aurelia could see small horns poking out of her hair, and long cow ears behind them.

  "Please! Please! Please! Don't be dead!" Aurelie pleaded to herself, the woman, and the gods.

  She wasn't a trained healer or physician, but she couldn't see any obvious wounds on the woman. She was covered in blood, so she had to be hurt in some way.

  Not to mention that Aurelia might have nded on her.

  The woman opened her eyes, they seemed to swirl in her head for a while before focusing on Aurelia's face.

  "Wh-what happened?" she said in a soft voice. "Are the others here too?"