Round 4 - Creature Comforts

Team: Puddlemere United

Position: Chaser 1

Creature: Thestral

Prompts:

(quote) "Not all who wander are lost." ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

(poem) "The Peace of Wild Things"


To See the Light

My name is not important, my story however is.

I am a Thestral, a mother of six.

A creature of darkness and of light.

A long time ago, after a horrible fire, a young witch's grief made my kind.

In her grief, her magic took on a life on its own.

Her grief drew a unicorn, who absorbed all her grief, creating the first Thestral.

Thestrals were meant to bring comfort not sadness, not a reminder of death.

However, as we only appear visible to the human eye after death is seen, we became associated with the darkness.

I became associated with darkness.

I pride myself on being a mysterious creature, on being something no one would ever understand or take a second look at.


However one day, I met a shining light who changed my world, for good and bad.

Her name was Luna and she was a little witch.

It was my youngest child who found her, wandering the forest barefoot and in a simple white dress in the evening. The sun was setting and it was dinner time for the students.

My son was exploring the woods when he stumbled across her crying, quietly to herself.

I don't know who scared the other more: her or him.

All I know is that my son delivered to me on his back, the little light.

She had cried herself to sleep on his back, and my heart melted around the human girl.

She was alone.

She woke up and looked up at me and said,

"I'm scared. Don't leave me."

It was the first time, someone had treated us with kindness.

She stayed with us until Hagrid came looking for her.

He took her back and her eyes met mine and just like that she was mine.

She came back to visit often and I slowly saw her as my own.

It was unusual for a human to actually like us, she was a rarity.

As she grew up, her light became brighter.

She was unlike the only other child that did not fear us.

That child, that boy was pure evil. It radiated from his soul. He was cruel, very cruel, my first child died by his hands.

Since then Tom Riddle had made an enemy of the Thestrals.


My world changed when Luna was a fourth year.

Luna came running to me one night, and all but begged me to follow.

I was stunned as I saw the children with her. They were so little, yet no longer innocents. They were warriors.

Luna helped them climb up on our backs and I was suprised by how they were willing to trust something they could no see. In that second, I prayed that they would not see me after that night.

My prayers weren't answered.


The school year after the battle at the ministry brought a new light into my life.

Rumors traveled fast even among creatures. Harry Potter had seen his god father died.

He would be able to see us this year.

For his sake, I asked Luna to make sure he was in my carriage.

I would never forget the look in his eyes as he took me in.

My dark feathery skeleton wings and my dark as death coat and my wild mane.

He looked as he is was going insane.

My heart went out to the poor boy. The light around him as fading and he seemed to be more lost than ever.

However like Luna, he found us.


It was an ordinary evening. Luna had come to tell me all about her day, and she prattled on as we wandered the woods my children scattered around us.

He stumbles towards us and Luna speaks him. I have no idea what she says to him but the next thing I know he draws closer and his hand hovers over me.

I look into his eyes and he sighs as he rests his hand over my head.

I close my eyes and try to draw out his grief, is pain, the it nearly causes me to buckle down.

For a child so young, he has lost so much. So much darkness in his life, so little light.

I stand there silently as Luna talks to Harry, everything is calm.

The calm before the storm.


That night, as my children slept, I cried. I had already lost my mate, my son, and my daughter was dying.

How many more children would I lose in the upcoming war?

How many lives would be lost?

How many more people would be able to see my deathly beauty after this was all over?

How many people would no longer be innocent after the war?


That was the year that Dumbledore died. I heard Fawkes wail and as one, we all rushed to the school.

As I rushed past, my eyes caught sight of a flash of white.

A boy who seemed surprised to see me.

The look in his eyes, was heartbreaking. He was so lost, so alone, so broken.

I watched him run and I rushed to pay my respects to a great man.


This year, Harry and his friends did not return. Luna did not come to see me. I lost two other children as the Death Eaters captured them and killed them in front of the students. So many more could see us now.

I only had two children left, not counting Luna and Harry and their friends who I considered to be a part of my herd.

The boy with the white hair, Draco started visiting the woods more often.

Often times, late at night, he would collapse on the ground and sob. My daughter and son did not understand why I comforted a boy who supported the man who was killing us all.

They didn't understand, they were not parents.

They didn't see how lost he had become wandering in the darkness.

I only hoped that one day he would see the light.


The battle was over and we have won but at a terrible price. When they announced that Harry had died, my heart almost broke, but it was nothing compared to the look on Hermione's face as she took in the sight of his fallen body.

Seeing him spring up and fight brought a new light and life to us all as we fought with all we have.

All around me, we all fought, humans and creatures, my herd, we fought.

I fought for a world full of light where the next generation would not see us.

Harry won the war.


I lost the battle.

All around me, people are grieving and weeping as they see love ones, dead and alive. Some see us for the first time.

I drag myself away from everyone as the pain deepens.


I am dying.

I see two lights. One light is the light I must go into to, the one where I will find my mate and children.

The other light is the light of the world I am leaving, the one where my Luna and Harry and a few others will live and love.

As my eyes fall shut, I see a wand rise and feel flowers in my mane.I close my eyes, the last faces I see are the ones of my human herd, my human children. The lost who were not really lost and that have found the light.

"The Peace of Wild Things"

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.


Thanks for reading ya'll. I hope you like it. This actualyl was a lot harder to write that I thought it would be. Let me know what you think. Love you , my darling Wallflowers!

- - Queen