Chasing Joy
Freine knew how childish it was, running with the bloftis as the colourful creatures swept through and eventually away from Postinen, but that makes sense, seeing as this is a tradition he's had since childhood.
The bloftis don't come through his home, the hollow market, of course. Unless one counted the unfortunate critters that had gotten caught in an unfortunate gust of wind and been pulled down into the underground chambers, only for their shrivelled bodies to be found later, unless someone manages to notice and help them back into the sky before the blofti reaches an area with air so stifled even such a light creature is incapable of catching a breeze to lift them from the ground.
So every year since he'd been only a foal, Freine had stubbornly made a trip up to the lush meadows of Postinen's surface, and ran alongside the crowds of bloftis, admiring the simple beauty of a creature whose only rule of being was that they must follow wherever the wind takes them.
Freine may not be strongest cor, and he highly doubts he ever will be, with his short stature and lack of stinger, but no one can honestly claim he isn't athletic, the burn in his legs barely registering as he again craned his neck up to look towards the pretty shapes sweeping around in the sky above him.
He was going to reach the edge of the island soon, as has always been the inevitable outcome. He can't follow the bloftis, can't know where they go the rest of the year, can't himself be free to sail through the skies to what may be lands unknown, or simply endless blue and pink and orange and even deep, dark sapphire shades of the infinite skies.
But still, as he reached the very edge of Postinen, he leapt- and fell, feeling the wind rush around him as he stared up at the bloftis still making their way through the sky, light enough to not have to worry about the weight that shackles every corceis to the whims of gravity.
He doesn't worry, knowing that he'd simply be sent to whatever teleportation station was the closest. Still, he can't help the small, childish sting of disappointment that he doesn't have his own prince to make a wish so strong as to transform his body and let him soar.
He closes his eyes and waits to hit the field that'll warp him back up to the island, refusing to acknowledge the tickling irony of the thought at the back of his mind, reminding him that he leaps off a ledge every year, with greed for something he can never have.
