Astride the winged beast that devoured the azure skies, she seemed an intangible force crafted of wind and snow. War devoured the spindly girl too present in her thoughts to exist in her body, and spat forth a warrior unafraid of defeat. Cressida tested the water with both feet and trusted the ocean to allow her buoyancy; even drowning would be made poetry if one suffocated in service of the greater good.

Her knees ached from a lifetime spent in Faeyer, where commoners would lower themselves in face of their authorities and even knights would yield to their generals. Cressida swore she would never kneel before anyone again. She was a rider without king or country, and one who did not demand the subjugation of her pegasus as many others did of their mounts. She offered her life not only to free Reskaea, but the world.

Though her heart was unwavering, her mind shifted as quickly as the clouds reflected in her irises. Her head was for ever tilted towards the skies, as if her shoulders could not bear the weight of earth's gravity. Cressida was a sylph given mortal flesh and yearned only to recede into air and light.

Worries appeared to slip past her pale skin like water around river stones and only the Dawn Brigade's pursuit of the peoples' liberation enraptured her enduring attention. She was incapable of contemplating more than a single unit of thought for hours or months at a time, rendering whatever attempt at communicating or persuading her of all else futile.

Despite the obscurity of her cognitive presence on land, Cressida possessed a kindness and altruism that was rare amongst Faeyeran soldiers taught only to wreck and pillage. She had never found bliss in conquering others and had remained in the military only for her cowardice. Shame had become a second skin, tarnishing every relationship and poisoning her thoughts. Cressida would spend her whole life in repentance, but still she would never be deserving of forgiveness

Cressida had always been devoid of colour, but never more so than in her youth. Her hair had fallen in near ivory ringlets around her cherubic face, and she had disappeared into the wintry landscape when snow fell. Though she'd been the palest of her raven-mained and amber-eyed brethren, it was not her appearance that rendered her an outcast.

The Lelièvre family had long been famed for possessing some of the mightiest Wyvern riders the Faeyeran army had ever seen. They were ruthless commanders capable of wrestling even the most intractable of dragons into submission. When Cressida revealed herself to not only be unsuited to Wyverns but horrifically so - if the event that had nearly taken her arm was any indication - the Lelièvre's attempted to tame her as they did their mounts.

Ambitious and prideful, her grandmother and leader of their house demanded she return to them a Wyvern rider or not at all before forsaking her to the jagged mountains where wild and mythical beasts were said to roam. The skies were the only gateway both to and from the Black Peaks, as a deathly plant emitted airborne particles of sleepsquake at its foothills, lulling its victims into unconscious, never to wake again.

Cressida had trekked through the unforgiving terrain for days, hiding in the crook of craggy rocks and twisted barks when the wild's inhabitants neared. On the third day, when it felt as if the thirst had drunk the blood from her lungs and rendered every breath agony, she found a shallow pool of water. She'd been grasping for its depths when the pegasus fell, its fall rattling the earth beneath her. Blood seeped through its silver mane even where claws had buried themselves even as her fingers fumbled to halt its flow. She fed the beast water to replenish what it had lost and when some of its strength returned, the pegasus that she would name Perihelion offered himself to her.

Her return atop the wounded pegasus earned her no welcome. Cast aside by her family, Cressida turned to the Faeyeran military, where she garnered the camaraderie and admiration she'd been denied. For a time, it had allowed her to overlook the brutality of her countrymen. It would be years before she awoke from the dream, at which point fear ensured her continued submission. That was, until she heard whispers of the Dawn Brigade and amassed the courage to escape her military camp in the cloak of night. She sought the vigilantes and swore to them her loyalty, attacking her own in defence of the Reskaean civilians.

Cressida had always been too gangly and weak to command weapons forged for strength and brutality, yet axes were the first weapons she held. Her talent for it was abysmal, and it was only when she'd been granted her first army-issued lance that she showed any gift for combat at all. Quick and limber, her narrow though tall frame was naturally suited to the long, tapered weapon. Her ambidexterity facilitated her use of the lance, allowing her to strike, skewer, block and parry without the hindrance of a heavy shield.

Although her slender build was reminiscent of a noodle blowing in the wind, what she lacked in defence she compensated for with agility. However, trapped in a dual with her opponents, Cressida would more often than not sacrifice self-preservation for the downfall of her enemies. Her Faeyeran training was perhaps to blame, her tutors having endorsed in her the need to attack, but rarely to protect.

Whilst capable on land, the pegasus knight flourished in air. Perihelion's strong but compact build coupled with his pale, sweeping wings enabled him to fuse with the skies, becoming a vehicle of stealth and guerrilla attacks. His endurance compensated for Cressida's lacking in stamina. He and his rider operated in perfect synchrony, allowing the latter to engage their enemies with no fear of falling. In battle alone, Cressida possessed impenetrable focus.