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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


    Not all who wander are lost - any
    #11
    He has been watching Izora and the falcon rather than Aodhan, and when he turns back to find that the once-rock-now-horse creature has become covered in feathers, he blinks rapidly and shakes his head as though to clear his eyesight. But no, the feathers – and the newly grown wings – remain and the spotted stallion who wears them seems utterly unconcerned.

    Pteron takes a step closer, impolite in his curiosity, and nearly reaches out to touch the feathered appendages. They are as snowy white as the other stallion’s coat and flecked in the same gold as his coat, reminding Pteron of the wings of a snowy owl he’d seen on the Icicle Isle, but metallic rather than simple black. He does not touch them though, remembering himself a few inches away, and draws back.

    “You seem to have a great many talents,” he says with admiration, and then an amused grin as he adds: “The only thing I got from the cure to the Plague was an end to my coughing.”

    Aodhan then retracts the feathers into his hide, a feat of shapeshifting that Pteron has never seen up close. It is fascinating, and again Pteron stifles the desire to tactiley explore the change. “You should,” he says with a nods, “Have you flown before? It took me a while to learn, but I was always clumsy as a child.” The dun pegasus has forgotten that his own wings are still invisible, and it is not until he turns to preen them that he is reminded.

    “Oh.” he says abruptly, with a soft laugh at himself, “Right.” And then his wings are visible again, and he looks back to the spotted stallion with a wink and a grin. “You’re not the only one with talents.”

    @[Aodhan]
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    #12

    Aodhán
    ice and fire
    All that is gold does not glitter; not all who wander are lost
    It’s fascination that draws them to each other, curiosity never sated. Though if he’s honest, Aodhán had never considered someone quite so similar to himself (young adult boys, equally curious and both playing with their magic as if it was cold fire) to be interesting, or interested.

    Thus, when Pteron comes closer, admires him, Aodhán doesn’t seem to mind, like he wouldn’t with any friend or family member. And, bluntness and a sense of humour not unlike his sire, makes him shrug and smile a bit. ”Just the one talent, really. And I betcha drinking that stuff was a bit of a risk.” An end to his coughing was surely what Eurwen had had in mind, though the side effects of that much magic was something neither could have foreseen.

    ”I haven’t, really.” With that realisation comes a grimace. ”I might be better off without them….” Or maybe he should try as a much smaller animal, like a swallow. But then what the other guy says to him hits home, and Pteron gets a curious green look thrown his way. But the dun already laughs at himself, and it takes just a moment for the spotted stallion to grin as well. ”Oh. Right.” he agrees near-mockingly, as one would with a good friend, even though they've only known each other for the day now.
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    #13
    Pteron's olive gaze flicks up to the sky. There are few places like this clearing in the woods of Taiga, where the blue stretches wide and open. Flight is more difficult here than it had been in Loess and the Brilliant Pampas, and Pteron has thought - more than once - that it is something of a shame. The dun stallion feels as much a creature of the sky as of the earth. Perhaps the previous invisibility of his wings has some deeper meaning, though if it does Pteron is not aware on any conscious level.

    Aodhan's response brings the stallion's attention back to the spotted horse, and Pteron's mouth curls up into a smile at the other's modesty. One talent, he says, as though the sort of shifting he seems capable of is no more impressive than Pteron's wings. He supposes that he might have more numerous skills, but none seem quite as comparable as what his newfound companion is capable of.

    The other says that he has not flown before, and Pteron frowns. Not in dislike ,but rather in concentration, and his brow furrows as he puzzles through their situation. "Take off is the hardest part," he muses aloud, "and I'd not want to have learned in these woods." He'd learned to fly as a horse, and imagines Aodhan will do the same. A running take-off is the easiest if one has not conditioned their wings properly, and a running take off would be more than difficult in this small meadow.

    "Can you be something small?" He asks curiously, wondering if perhaps they might skip the learning to take-off part entirely. "Maybe I could get you up in the air, and then you could fly from there?"

    @[Aodhan]
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    #14

    Aodhán
    ice and fire
    All that is gold does not glitter; not all who wander are lost
    The icy-coloured male before him seems to switch into some kind of teacher modus, which allows Aodhán to study his companion. He wants to ask, about the wings, if they had been generated like his own or if they were invisible or if perhaps it was only wings the guy could summon; but then a suggestion that the gold-spotted baroque had already forgotten about, captures his attention once more.

    Pteron talked about take-off being the hardest part, which causes only a tiny millisecond of doubt - he’d always assumed it would be landing without breaking anything - but then the following question seems right up the knabstrupper hybrid’s alley. With a nod, he looks to his companion. ”I suppose. I haven’t been able to study shifting, or other creatures, much.” But now Turul’s short appearance came in handy. Closing his eyes in concentration, the young stallion tries to remember the falcon’s shape. His wings are already in the right shape, but the roundness of the bird of prey’s body is slightly trickier to remember. Yet, tied with the earlier subconscious shift, it is doable - when he opens his eyes to the white-and-cream male, they are no longer at (relatively) similar height; much smaller is the white falcon, who is curiously inspecting himself, minor changes sharpening the bird’s features as he finds the missing details.

    Looking up with his head tilted sideways, he considers. A vantage point is what he needs - especially if Pteron wants to fly, too. ”I should have thought this through some more.” Aodháns voice seems edgy, caw-like, and he shakes his feathered head as he hears it, dismissing the change as minor and temporary. ”Uhm, can you maybe, bow or something so I can climb to your shoulder?”


    @[Pteron]
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    #15
    Pteron watches with rapt interest as the horse in front of him begins to transform. His olive eyes are open wide in contrast to Aodha’s concentration closed, and he doesn’t blink lest he miss even the smallest detail. The shape is not quite right when the once-horse opens his eyes again, and the young stallion watches in fascination as the falcon adjusts bits of himself to better resemble Aten’s companion.

    “That’s so cool,” he finally says, and his blue muzzle nods sharply in satisfaction. The bird speaks with a voice that is both like Aodhan and the screech of a hunting hawk, and though it is harsh to Pteron’s ears he does not flinch away. Instead he waits, having half-determind that he’d best lean down just as the other male suggests it. Nodding in ascent, Pteron bends down. To further assist he half unfolds his nearest wing, pressing it forward so that the wrist wrests on the cool earth and dewy grass.

    “Don’t worry about the talons,” Pteron says, because he knows that had he claws such as the raptors that he’d be concerned to dig them into a stranger. “Even if you gig me, it’ll heal fast.” Waiting for the falcon to adjust its grip, Pteron’s gaze turns to the clearing around them. Open spaces like these are uncommon in the Taiga, but they they are usually the best places from which to take off. Pteron prefers the risk of takeoff in the trees, where each flap of his massive wings must be a careful to not knock against a massive trunk. He’s missed a fair few times and is quite familiar with the many ways in one might break a wing.

    Best to not break a wing on Aodhan’s first flight, the young stallion tells himself.

    So he glances over the broad meadow, spotting a place where the ground slopes up. A boulder lies beneath that, Pteron knows, and indeed his hooves slam on hardy granite as he checks the safety of his passenger and takes one two, three strides and then he is airborne. He has to sweep back to avoid brushing his hooves against the trees, and keeps one ear flicked back to be sure Aodhan remains secure. Then he slimbs higher with swift beats of his wings, up until they have reached a place in the sky where the air does not move overmuch and they might hear each other speak.

    “We’re a ways up now,” he tells Aodhan, as though their height is not spectacularly obvious. “I think if you just spreads your wings and take-off there’s plenty of room between here and the ground for you to learn to fly. And if there’s not, I’ll just catch you and we’ll try again.” he says the last with casual confidence, which he hopes is reassuring to his passenger. He and his siblings have played catch-the-falling-feather a hundred times; how different can a falcon and a feather really be?

    @[Aodhan]
    ooc: I did speed up to them being in the air so let me know if you want me to change anything! Smile
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    #16

    Aodhán
    ice and fire
    All that is gold does not glitter; not all who wander are lost
    Carefully placing his taloned feet in Pteron’s mane - mostly-, the falcon climbs towards the ice-coloured male’s neck’s base. There, he lingers, spreading his wings for balance as soon as Pteron begins to move, but trying to half-fold them back when in only a few strides, the other male makes a sharp airborne turn, lest he accidentally lifts away from Pteron.

    In a few frightful moments, they’re above the treetops, and longer still until they’re so far away that Pteron tells him it’s safe. Looking down, to Aodhán it looks like quite a lot of space, but perhaps, he tells himself, that’s because he is smaller now. And, subsequently, that should give him more time falling before dropping to his death. Best not think about what it would be to crash into a tree from above.

    Flapping his wings near-frantically, the shifter is quite lucky to have copied a falcon indeed, as those birds frequently enough lift and stay in the air that way. So when he lets go of Pteron’s mane, he doesn’t actually go far at all; in fact, he seems to fly backwards a little, the wind taking him to a place not too far above Pteron’s right wing.

    The bird isn’t quite sure if this is a good thing - looking at his pegasus companion, this is quite clear from his face. ”Uh, now what?”


    @[Pteron]
    Sorry for taking so long! I had to actually think about how to fly lol
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    #17
    Pteron has never seen confusion on a falcon’s face before, but he recognizes it when he does. Perhaps there is just enough of the horse still in the compact predator for the stallion to see it. Whatever the reason, it elicits a quick blue grin. This is the easy part – the fun part.

    “Anything you want,” he replies with a laugh.

    His pale wings had been outspread, and now he lowers just one, angling it downward. His body follows immediately after, tipping over. For a moment he seems to falling, but then he angles upward once more to come up on the little falcon’s other side.

    “Just move your body and see what happens.” Pteron does not know the anatomy of birds very well, but he knows enough about horses to be sure their methods of flight will vary greatly. This is not something he can teach Aodhan; it is something he needs to learn for himself. “Trial and error,” Pteron repeats the phrases his father had told him when giving the same lesson years ago. “Start with little movements first.”

    The dun stallion repeats the wing dip again, returning to his former position just to the left of the falcon. The thermal that they drift within will keep them both aloft with minimal effort, and after giving Aodhan his brief instructions, Pteron follows them himself, spinning and falling and rising with the smallest of adjustments to the way he angles his wings and holds his body.

    When he can be heard over the wind, he says: “Flying is the best way to get anywhere. The funnest too, I think.” Pteron’s only other options are walking and running, of course, but that does not matter much. “Where had you been?” He gestures (careful to move just his chin rather than his neck and risk an altitude adjustment) out to the world of Beqanna that spreads below. Aodhan had mentioned coming to Taiga, and Pteron is curious where he has been before this.

    @[Aodhan]
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    #18

    Aodhán
    little fire
    All that is gold does not glitter; not all who wander are lost
    The falcon silently throws Pteron a questioning look at his answer - it was both helpful and not. The pegasus seems to pick up on that, though, and so the falcon watches his ice-and-blue friend move around. It’s mostly a matter of changing angles as far as he can see, and the bird follows suit.

    Diving comes most naturally to a falcon, and so when Aodhán tips his head and shoulder, he knows instinctively to pull in his wings half-way, and then spreads one more than the other to make a sharp turning motion, upwards and to the right. The momentum is something he uses to come back up towards the pegasus, flapping to stay still mid-air and grinning at the other.

    It honestly hadn’t occurred to him that Pteron’s promises of catching him before he crashed, wouldn’t have been something the other male could have kept up at Aodhán’s current speed.

    The falcon now turns his head at the question, looking to Beqanna below. ”Down there, the icy spot.” He points to Icicle Isle with a wing but immediately pulls it back, seeing as he’s almost turning. ”Have you always lived in Taiga? Or do you visit other lands too,” he asks the other male then. Curious about the world, Aodhán figures it’s time to discover other places - every part of nature is beautiful in it’s own right.


    @[Pteron] ugh I'm so late sorry
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