A/N: Prompt from an anon, who supplied the first sentence. Thanks!
The blonde haired peasant's favorite possession is a large, soft, strong brown feather, weathered with age.
It's always kept close to her chest, either on the leather thong she'd laced around her neck or hot, clutched in her hands whenever she needs the tangible strength.
Unyielding and never out of shape, it represents freedom, flight, all that's needed to suggest there's more to her life than what she should expect.
However it's with her, the peasant girl knows, concedes, she's had the feather for as long as she can remember. She'd picked it up one day after a walk, perhaps, or after one of the times she'd ventured close to the Moors. She can't remember when, exactly, it had come to be in her possession, but it had, and she couldn't imagine otherwise.
The feather, bigger than any she'd seen before, seemingly more than what she'd seen before, is, by now, irrefutably hers.
It makes her heart ache when she looks at it. Makes her heart ache when she strokes it up and down. Makes her heart ache when she feels how soft and real it is.
Because it, perhaps more than any truth her normal life bestows on her, barely living in her aunts' shadows, tells her there's more out there.
The day the woman with wings and proud, tall horns alights before her, only proves it.
"I... I knew you were real," Aurora murmurs, her prized possession hot and sweaty in her grip as she stares at the alien faerie.
The faerie's brow lifts. "You are too close to the Moors," she answers, almost rotely, as if it's not too important even as her presence presses outwards, trapping Aurora in front of her. They're not far enough away from the Moors' boundaries that she has to flaunt her power, but Aurora feels it anyway.
It's not like the eerie glowing eyes don't freeze her to her spot, either.
Aurora's tongue works in her mouth. "I don't mean to be," she bows her head, glancing up and down the faerie's body that she can still see, "But you..." Her knuckles whiten as the still un-crumpled feather unfurls in her palm, "This is you?"
A pump of the faerie's wings, and Aurora trembles, knowing that if she unfurls her fingers even more, she'd be touching her.
"It seems to be one of mine. Where... When did you get it?"
The electric presence fades again, and Aurora bites her lip, looking up once again to see the faerie, her wings folded behind her, back at the Moors' boundary line.
"Y-Years ago," is all she can manage.
The faerie crosses her arms. "You can't be more specific than that?" She sniffs. "You human."
As "human" as it is, Aurora can't answer. "No." She brings the feather back down to her hip. Her hand tightens around it. "I just know..." Her palm lifts after she resecures the feather in her grip, "As long as I've remembered, it's been with me."
Glowing green eyes stare at her. Dark red lips purse, high cheekbones tightening as a thin, almost-aquiline nose rises into the air. "You see the feather as yours?"
"...Yes. Yes?"
The faerie's expression ripples, her wings flaring out momentarily before drawing close again. "How... Interesting," she murmurs, canines flashing as her lips lift, fleetingly, not once looking away from Aurora, her fingers cupping her cheek as she tilts her head. "How... Interesting."