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  • Beqanna

    COTY

    Assailant -- Year 226

    QOTY

    "But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura


    bury my love in the moondust; sviko
    #1
    There is only the faintest rustling of grass as Daedra drops to the earth. The thick pads of her clawed feet absorb the weight of the lioness as she lands, and she flicks her black-tipped tail against the wispy bark of the juniper she had just been resting in as her golden eyes take in the wide meadow ahead of her.

    This is a good season for hunting.

    Young prey is just starting to venture from their mother's sides, emboldened by the good weather and their growing strength. Their strength is nothing to hers, of course, and taking down a wobbly fawn is an easy afternoon's work.

    Not this afternoon, though. The deer have become wary of this corner of the Meadow, where Daedra and her pride have made the land unsafe for creatures lower on the food chain. There are still plenty of rabbits and birds, but it takes far more of those to fill her belly.

    In the distance she can see a herd of horses grazing. A few foals play on the outskirts of the circle of mares, but the whiskered lioness has never considered the equines potential prey. Her mother has argued otherwise - what difference is there between these solid horses and the striped tsebra - but that hasn't changed Daedra's adverse reaction to the thought of eating them.

    A sound rustles behind her and Daedra turns, glancing over one tawny shoulder for the source of the noise.

    @[Kristin] Big Grin
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    #2
    Everyone has a place but the young prince. Oh he knows he is loved as the youngest and the last (for now) by mothers and siblings both, but he lacks the bonds that are easily made by others. Both Will and Rhae already have friends and perhaps, young lovers and where does that leave him? By himself. A lot.

    So he strays.
    He discovers.
    He explores and roams and only comes home to rest for the night. No one asks him what he does or where he goes and he does not volunteer this information. He doesn’t tell them that he swims a lot. To lake bottoms and river bends, because the world’s there are just as fascinating as the one he was born into. That tides and fish are more frowns to him than any horse.

    So the pale painted prince does what he does best when the sun crests the horizon. He leaves at first light from the grotto and neat of sibling legs and necks. Roads lesser traveled beckon to him until they peter out into streams that he trails the lengths of until he finds the parent source. Which leads him to a corner of the meadow that horses tend to avoid, or so he assumes because no one seems to be occupying it.

    There is a curious scent there that seems to be of a similar vein to his mother’s companion and his uncle when not in his original form. Musky, like a cat - big cat - the kind that sets off warning bells inside the mind but Sviko doesn’t move besides a nervous shuffle of his legs in the lengthy grass that makes it rustle. Oops, it gives him away as does the throat-clearing cough and weak coltish hello that follows after it.



    @[Daedra] ♥️
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    #3
    Daedra has never felt anything but included. So included, sometimes, that she feels like suffocating. Mother and brothers and sister have not been separate for more than a few hours since their birth three springs past, and the only solitude Daedra gets are her hunts. Unlike Mother, the tawny lioness is big enough to bring down prey that will feed the whole pride - even the exceptionally hungry Isaac. Mother says he is a growing boy, but Daedra thinks he is just growing lazy.

    She is attuned to the world around her, and before she even sees the piebald horse, she has realized he is not prey.

    Daedra does not hunt horses not only for the danger (their hooves are far heavier than deer, and they too often wield invisible magics) but because they look just a little too much like Wiley. She wouldn't want anyone to eat Wiley, and so she does not eat horses.

    It is fortunate for the yellow and white colt that she feels this way, because he does not look especially formidable. Still, he seems approximately the right size to help her, and sounds startled enough that perhaps he'll comply just to avoid the possibility of being attacked.

    "Do you know how to talk to deer?" She asks, making clear by her voice that she is not only a lion, but also most likely a horse. There are enough shifters in this magical world that she doesn't consider this stranger might not be aware of this. "I want them to be still so I can get close but they always run away."

    @[Sviko]
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    #4
    He knows inclusion but it feels different these days. Different enough to make him seek out the pinnacles crags of his homeland or the waterways that call to the gills on his neck. Some strange infusion of wild magic had suddenly set him apart as much as his siblings’ more outgoing natures had. Sviko has simply grown more withdrawn with a nomadic state fixed on a point in the horizon that only he could see.

    His blue eyes take in this parcel of untouched meadow from the sway of the grasses to the big cat smell. Whatever lives here is neat enough to dispose of the bones so as not to scare anyone off. Or maybe they ate the bones too... he shivers just a little at the spooky thought before squaring himself up to face the inevitable.

    Which happens to be a lion.
    A tawny sleek lion with a feminine voice.
    Lioness.

    His mouth gapes open in astonishment at the fact that she can talk and is clearly talking to him. The colt doesn’t really recover smoothly - he has no charm to him yet, but it’s there, buried beneath the indecision of adolescence. Plus he’s recognizing that she’s more than just a lion; probably a shifter like his uncle since other animals don’t seem to talk back to a measly little horse like him. 

    Finally he shuts his mouth as his baby blues settle firmly on her. Oddly, he’s not afraid though he’s positive she could make a meal out of him if she wanted to - except she’s asking about deer so she must have no interest in devouring him which is good, he’s a bit partial to this sack of meat and bones that he wears. “Not really...” but he’s suddenly thinking of Will and her antlers and how she was as deer-like as anyone could get as far as the antlers went. 

    “But I bet I could scare them out towards you...” because hey, it sounds like a good idea to him to flush the deer out towards her and she can pick the weakest or smallest off. Odd, it doesn’t bother him to sacrifice a deer or two - she needs to eat too!

    @[Daedra]
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    #5
    He is not especially large yet, and Daedra suspects she could get a good smack to his head before he'd react. Nearly a twelve inches across and tipped with four massive claws, the lioness's right paw has stunned many an animal with a single blow. The yellow boy would take several hits to bring down; the calculations are instinctual despite her avoidance of this particular meal.

    Despite the boy's initial shock, he recovers well, volunteering to scare the deer toward her. The lioness ponder this for a moment, her square face tilting as her yellow eyes narrow thoughtfully.

    "If they let you get near enough," she acquiesces, hopeful that this boy might be more useful than her brothers. They are frightfully lazy, and Daedra suspect they'd starve without the help. The only other male cat she'd ever met had been equally useless. He'd never hunted at all!

    Perhaps I will have better luck recruiting among the equine, she thinks. Someday she might even find one who can talk to to the deer and convince them to sacrifice themselves. For now, she will work with what she has.

    "I'll be over there," She says, having turned to look over the fields behind her. A pair of trees stands not far from them, both with thick low branches. "Scare them that way."

    Leaving him to stalk for the small herd I'd scented nearby (I assist with a pointed stare and nod in their direction), I turn for the trees, where I climb to a sturdy branch and wait. Lying in wait is not my favorite way of hunting, but it is the most efficient. If the boy scares the deer this way I will soon have a meal. And if he doesn't, well, I'll have to make due with the groundhogs I'd found a few hundred yards away.

    @[Sviko]
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    #6
    Well this is a first! 
    He cannot believe he’s actually talking to a lioness. Sviko is almost certain his siblings would be jealous despite all their adventures without him because they’ve never talked to an animal before and had it answer them. Or vice versa since she’s initiated the conversation. 

    His amazement is still rather plain upon his face as he stares at her. Not impolitely or from a subtle instinct to remain watchful and wary. Just to show his attentiveness to her plight of hunger. He can see her mulling over his offer given that it was a brash, foolhardy one that might not succeed. It’d just seemed logical to him at the time.

    Or she could always change her mind and eat him. That garnered a noticeable gulp from him before she conceded the attempt to try to him. He follows her direction towards the two trees and gives her a nod of understanding. “Okay, I hope this works!” he mumbles as he turns towards the direction she had indicated the deer where in with her tawny muzzle. 

    Sviko attempts to think like a deer but the attempt is pitiful. He’s not a deer and so he cannot think like them or mimic them. Even as a growing gangly colt he’s still too loud and careless to ever pretend at an ounce of their wildness and grace. But the light bulb goes off in his brain and he circles around the herd before jumping into their midst with a loud braying whinny that sent the deer into instant flight.

    They leapt away from him in the intended direction and he felt a surge of triumph in his gut. Then it plummeted at the herd swerved as one in the opposite direction. So he concentrated and shot a beam of light towards them to direct them back on course. It worked! He kept emitting the little dastardly lasers of light until the deer would pass right beneath the boughs of the two trees standing together. 

    Looks like the lion would have her meal after all! 


    @[Daedra] dinner and a show! lmfao
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