The Tuscan Pegasus

Up on the mountain and beyond the thick layers of clouds, a flock of white wings flap and cleave the air. A horde of pegasi briskly swish by. The clouds are their playground, galloping through the puffy vapours on the blue sky. Narrow shades of white hardly differentiate each pegasus. But there is no identical colour for their mane. From the black, brunette, and grey to the coral, fuschia, and teal the pegasus bears their own identity.

Every once in a while, the pegasi will hear a peculiar faint sound that transcends the atmospheres. The Master set his call. The whole string of pegasi will descend down towards the troposphere to meet their Master.

Upon the arrival of the pegasuses, the Master will always stand at the front edge of a temple’s porch, standing between a row of colonnade. Compared to the Master, the columns are gigantic. The smooth surfaces of the cream-coloured columns rise tall towards the architrave and the triangular pediment. The temple barely has any ornament and the capital is just a simple abacus on top of each column’s head. The pediment is the only part that states the temple’s identity, crowded with sculptures in the shape of a pegasi army.

It is perhaps a tradition, but the pegasi will maneuver between the closely-placed columns before landing on the temple’s courtyard. When the pegasi have all arrived, the Master will go down through the temple’s steps to meet them. Dangling on his neck is a bronze whistle in a shape of a thunderbolt. The Master will assign each of his pegasus in a quest, sending them to every corner of the world to do the deeds.

After sending quite a few pegasi, the Master turns toward one pegasus that stands near a free-standing column on the temple’s courtyard. He then gives the pegasus a quest:

“Tell me stories.”