Longwing

Overview
The longwing is a coastal breed, living primarily solitary lives on the cliffs overlooking seas, oceans, or large lakes. Lightweight, long-legged, and long-winged, these pegasi are suited to long flights in climates with high or constant wind. They tend to be energetic, flighty, and highly intelligent.

Coloration/Conformation
In a lighter weight class than broadwings, lightwings tend to be more fragile, but have much higher stamina than their heavier cousins. These pegasi are fantastic for long-haul flights, easily riding wind currents and updrafts to stay airborne with little effort. Pilots must be extra aware of how much weight they're taking off or landing with, because while a longwing can carry proportionally more weight in flight than a broadwing, they may injure themselves during takeoff or landing if bearing too much weight.

Artistically, longwings are based on arabians, thoroughbreds, and akhal-teke horses, with the wings and appetites of coastal birds like seagulls, terns, and albatross. Most of these pegasi are white, cream, or light tan in color, with little variation, but some darker wing markings. They also tend to have longer ears than broadwings, adding to their expressive appearance.

Behavior
Energetic and intelligent, longwings are difficult to tame, and may be easily spooked in an unfamiliar or busy environment. In addition, breeding longwings for training and sale can pose significant difficulties, as young longwings require both a long run and a long drop for their first flight. Most of these flights in the wild take place directly off the cliffs atop which their parents nested.

Although longwings are largely solitary, they are the only pegs that can be reliably flown as a team. Longwings form permanent pair bonds when mated, and if half of the pair is tamed by a pilot, the second will travel with its mate. Properly handled, a mated pair can be flown together by a single pilot.

Like their broadwing kin, longwings are omnivores, but the majority of their diet is made up of fish and certain flowering dune grasses. Fish are caught live, usually by skimming the waves or even by diving. They can live off of inland grasses, but may develop a particularly uncomfortable skin condition that affects both the hide and feathers if deprived entirely of fish.

Breeding/Nesting
Longwings mate for life, and may be particularly choosy when it comes to picking a mate. This makes breeding them difficult for a rancher, unless they tame a pair that's already mated. Longwings will return annually to an established nesting ground, reusing familiar sites until either old age or injury prevent them.

A longwing mare will have only a single foal per year, and is the only pegasus known to give live birth. Longwing foals are born dark grey or brown, but will grow their lighter adult plumage at around 12-15 months old. In addition, longwing foals generally have a very short period of time between birth and leaving the nesting grounds. They are born with rudimentary feathers and flight-feather quills already present on their wings, and both the wings and feathers will grow rapidly after birth. Most longwing foals can take their first flight within two weeks of being born.

When the foals do have their flight feathers, they race down the sloped cliffs of the nursery island toward the sea during the strong afternoon headwinds. The mother pegasus guides the foal, and the father protects from airborne predators or other pegasi competing for the limited space. If the foal is successful, the three will land in a few hours at a less crowded island. If the foal fails, it will fall into the sea and is in real danger of drowning or being caught by sea predators."Author's Note: Longwings effectively 'hatch' their eggs in-utero. They are the only breed known to do this, and it's one of the defining characteristics of the longwings."

Variations
As with all other creatures, there are some breeds that blur the line between one category and another. The primary subclasses of longwing are Heavy Longwings and Dark Longwings.

Heavy Longwings are in a weight class generally above their Standard cousins, with proportionately longer wings. They tend to be aggressively independent, and very rarely tolerate confinement. Very few Heavy Longwings have been tamed or ridden in living memory. Dark Longwings, as the name suggests, are darker in color than the Standard Longwing, which are usually white, light grey, or similar. Even Dark Longwings, however, tend to have white or light markings. Owing to the superstition about "death riding on dark wings," very few pilots choose to ride Dark Longwings.