The first thing that register in Ryann’s mind was the cold. Thick gusts of air whipped and howled around the platform she’s only just come to on, making her frame shiver and shake violently. How long had she been lying here in the snow? The question echoed in her head, followed by many others, until her head was eventually crowded with unanswered inquiries and a creeping sense of anxiety. She sucked in a breath to try and calm herself, but only succeeded in causing another sharp spasm of shivering. 

“How did I…?” her lips unconsciously formed the words, sounding desperate and unbelieving. Her dark eyes searched her surroundings aimlessly, while he mind, still groggy and in start-up mode, struggled to make sense of the situation. There was snow, and she was sitting on something made of stone. A building? Behind her, the starch outlines of mountains jutted up from the white landscape. In the opposite direction, a good ways below, were the remnants of some sort of castle, though the thick flurries left many of its details undefinable. Ryann noted her surroundings while she tried to collect her thoughts, and in an odd sort of way, it helped slow her panic. The last thing she recalls, if she is recalling it correctly, was being outside. She was flying, and then in a tree with Roach—she name of said crab suddenly send another spike of panic through her system, and for a moment, her limbs seized up for a reason other than the cold, and her stomach floated. 

Where was Roach? He was definitely with her before, in her bag. The young avian suddenly twisted around to the left, and then to the right, frightened to the core after she failed to locate the missing knapsack. 

“No.. No no no no no..” Ryann slowly began murmuring, and anxiously climbed to her feet. Everything ached, and stopped her sputtering when the familiar but unpleasant feeling of pins and needles shot down her limbs. How long had she been lying there? The question was back again, but then quickly forgotten when a rush of cold wind pushed through her. She wrapped her arms around her torso tightly and curled away from the wind. Behind her, a pair of sea eagle wings folded themselves flatly against her back, thankfully well insulated, unlike the rest of her unfeathered skin. 

It took her time to waddle towards the edge of what she now knew to be a tower, and a little more afterwards to survey the rest of her current perch. There were no stairs, nor bridge left to walk down from, and by the look of the time worn brick, this wasn’t a very well kept building to begin with. She continued to pace around the circular platform, if only to help calm her nerves while she kicked at snow drifts. In the back of her mind, she hoped that maybe Roach was hiding in one of them, blended white like the rest of this god awful wonderland. She wouldn’t be that lucky, though, and was only greeted with chunks of ice and chilled toes. 

“I hate the snow.” She snapped and kicked at a drift bitterly, though underneath the irritation, she was terrified. The combination of cold, lost, and suddenly finding herself alone didn’t bode well, and for the briefest of moments, she wished for her brothers to be here. She wished they would just suddenly appear and help her, as they often did in situations like this, but they didn’t this time. No, Ryann realized with a painful throb of fright, she was alone right now.

She isn’t sure how long she just stood there then, contemplating her next few courses of action. Most obviously, she wanted to find Roach, and then somewhere warm, of course. If he wasn’t on top of the tower with her, then he might have landed somewhere else, hopefully still close by. Her eyes scanned below again, now noticing the small flicker of warm light lick at the snowy landscape. Fires, though, they didn’t looked intentionally placed, much to her unease. She then looked over the ruins of a castle, and the long bridge that extended only part way to the lone tower she stood on. 

“Well, that’s a start.” She huffed through jittering teeth, and then whistled out into the wind and waited for it to call back—after a few minutes, she was returned with nothing. Her face scrunched up in confusion for a moment, and she tried again. Once more, the wind ignored her and continued on in its own direction. “What the hell!” she suddenly felt irritation spark at the ends of her nerves, like live wires in the rain, “Why’re you being such a shit..?” she whined into the wind, unable to comprehend why it wouldn’t listen. She didn’t have time to argue with nature, she thought anxiously, and tried three more times before finally stomping her feet and letting loose a few more choice curses. For some ungodly reason, the wind was ignoring her, which meant that if she wanted to fly, she’d be stuck with riding out the winds as they are, and at the moment, they were nothing but a harsh mess of ice and snow. 

“I freaking hate the snow..!” She whined one last time, and bitterly let her wings outstretch behind her, small but dark like a flowing cape. She imagined that sea hawk wings would fare well enough in this type of weather, and didn’t trouble herself with a change. The wind leafed through her feathers in a way she was all too familiar with, begging to lift her from the ground, and helped to relax her nerves a bit. In the next moment, she was vaulting over the edge of the tower, and into the mercy of the wind.