She’s been experimenting and practicing with shapes all throughout the night - following noises and turning into whatever creature she discovers. Slowly she’s getting better at passing through forest and field without notice - a handy little skill. The night noises invigorate her and she passes through the darkness without feeling tired, though she’s looking forward to an afternoon nap stretched out in the sunlight somewhere.

Although she typically favours the forms that come with claws and teeth, Mazikeen spent most of the night as a doe - crystalline white but for the black markings on her face and legs, and always those bright orange eyes. She’s left the herd she had been trailing, mimicking their movements and learning as she did, and has been wandering in an attempt to shift back into her normal body.

Maybe she was more tired than she thought she was - because it wasn’t working. The more frustrated she gets, the harder it is to grasp that little switch that allows her to shift from one thing into another, until she just begins angrily stomping through the forest in the early light of day.

A few seconds away from just full-on pouting, she’s distracted from her current failure by the sight of a golden boy. He stands out not only because of his coat but because of the rather dramatic package he makes, looking as though he just got finished running for his life. She hadn’t seen any predators in the area (she would have shifted and tried to join in, just to see if she could) and in the peaceful early morning, there doesn’t seem to be much to be afraid of.

Rather than leave him alone, Mazikeen’s voice joins in the morning symphony of birdcall and rustling. “Well, you look awful. Rough night there, kid?” He looks to be about her age, sure, but that hardly matters to the orange-eyed girl as she approaches, still in her deer-shape, wondering if taking her frustration out on someone else will make this morning any better.

His response inspires a smile, and she tilts her head to the side curiously while she watches him - waiting for more of an explanation. Ideas bounce around in her head and each second brings a new ridiculous explanation. Was he a shifter like her? There seemed to be so many around, she wouldn’t be surprised. She had met more horses who could shift than those who couldn’t - even a colt that could change the colour of his coat. There isn’t much of an imagination in this young girl but it’s still enough to fill the silence with theories.

So it is disappointing when there is no explanation about what his rough night involved and her smile quickly fades away into a frown.

She takes a moment to just look at this golden boy for a moment before she answers the question he asks of her. His voice is hoarse, as though he had been screaming all through the night, which only intensifies her curiosity. Still, she answers in a rather blunt tone. “Mazikeen.”

Maze-the-doe holds her breath for a moment after speaking her name, as if that will somehow trigger her real-self into being. When it doesn’t, she lets that breath out in an exaggerated ‘humph’ and rolls her orange eyes. “I’m not always a deer but I’ve been stuck like this all night. Bet your night wasn’t worse than that.” Actually she’s pretty sure his must have been - since hers wasn’t bad at all except for this little hiccup - but she’s going to poke until she can get a little more of a reaction.

“Who are you?”

What a surprise - she gets no response. Not even any anger or annoyance, two traits she has come to expect in foals that are around her age. Or maybe it’s just that she feels them so much, she assumes that everyone else must too.

A switch seems to flick inside the mind of this Firion, which only serves to raise more questions. She doesn’t believe this straight-standing, faint-smile-wearing version is anything but a mask. For a moment she just watches, uncertain about whether she’s going to harass him further or not. She decides she can appreciate masks. There’s a feral note in that flash of teeth that she finds familiar and comforting, so she’ll pretend to let her questions drop.

For now, anyway. She thinks if she allows the conversation to change for a couple of moments, he’ll stop being so damn weird about whatever had happened to make him look so spooked when she first showed up.

The doe-Mazikeen huffs in exasperation again, short black-tipped tail flicking behind her. “Sometimes I get stuck. I think it’s an “experience” thing.” Although air quotes are not exactly easy for horses to accomplish, Mazikeen’s slight roll of her eyes and drawl of the word should get the task done.

“Pretty stupid of me, I know.” She says it like a joke, but she feels the sting of her own words. She feels like an idiot for not being able to do one simple thing - switch back into the form that was hers. The fact that she has an audience does not make it worse - she does not mind what others think, but she loathes her own failures.

Mazikeen can feel the pull on her mood like a physical weight and she suddenly decides that she very much does not want to focus on this anymore. Her dark deer-nose twitches as she abruptly changes the subject. “You hungry, Firion? Whatever you were running from seems to have disappeared,” She says this as casually as she can, her orange eyes even slide away from his face and to their surroundings, though she’s watching from her periphery to see if the words cause any reaction. See if her first guess hits a mark at all.

“It’s as good of a time as any for breakfast. I don’t know about you, but my night time endeavours made me work up quite the appetite.”

Even if the boy that she gets to laugh is only a mask of the true self, even if it is fake laughter (which she suspects), she cannot deny that it feels good to make someone else laugh. Enough to make a non-edged smile brighten her orange eyes for a moment. Even if it is at her own foolish mistakes, she enjoys the feeling for a brief moment.

Then Firion makes what she thinks is an attempt to make her feel better about being stupid, though it falls a little short. There’s no sense of relief that she is, at least, a little higher than the others he has met. “Inspiring. Thanks.” She clips back - and though it might have been a little bit sincere, the sarcasm drips from it though there's that near-constant grin that suggests she's not as offended as her tone suggests. Still, she wouldn’t mind shifting into the jaguar he reminds her of and giving him a little smack with a clawed paw for that remark.

Unfortunately, when she tries to pull on the shift to do that, it is as unresponsive as the tether to go back into her body.

Fortunately, at least, she can eat just as well as a doe as she can as a filly. So she puts “slap this boy” in the back burner with “find out what he was doing at night” on her list of things she will do in the future.

Maze at least earns a flinch with her comment, a success which inspires a feral grin that she (very slowly) hides while turning her head. “Come on then, weird boy. Let’s go find ourselves a snack.” She turns to head down the small path they’re on and begins the search for a spot that is not just trees and shrubs where they can graze. She doesn’t pause to see if he follows her or not - but if he does she casts a look over to him.

“So.” She lets the word dangle for a moment but ultimately does not repeat her previous questions but instead, with a faint smile, chooses something neutral. “Where do you live?”

The name he gives is familiar and she thinks it’s close to where she’s been hanging around at Silver Cove, but she doesn’t know for sure and doesn’t want to seem stupid by asking. Maybe she’ll sneak around and investigate - it seems like a good idea to know where the different lands are, after all, even if her pack will transcend the need for borders. All information, she is trying to remember, can be handy if she bothers to try.

The question is flipped and she should have expected it, but somehow she doesn’t. For a moment, the doe-Mazikeen is quiet as she tries to figure out the answer to this very simple question. “Nowhere in particular - just around.” Is the vague answer she gives him when she veers into a small clearing, lush with grasses and dappled with flowers. The rising sun is brighter here and seems to glint off of the golden skin of the colt with her. She idly admires it for a brief moment before moving into the clearing and lowering her head to graze.

As much as she is annoyed with his secrets, she’s finding it easy to keep her own. Mazikeen doesn’t want to explain that her mother never brought her to where the rest of her family lived so they hung around in the common areas with her father. Or that she has found a new family in the Cove with delightfully wild creatures she admires with all of her young heart. How could she explain to someone that she doesn’t even feel all that guilty about how easy it was to find someone to replace Agetta as the focus of her young world?

Even though she does not believe the arrogant mask Firion wears is real, Mazikeen does not trust it to share these pieces of herself.

She is not self-aware enough to wonder if this is why he does not share with her, either.

After a moment, her doe-head rises from the grass and she poses another question. She has, momentarily, been effectively sidetracked from her initial mission and now finds herself curious about whether everyone’s first year of life has been like hers. Not quite unstable - but something close, surely. It’s easy to assume Firion has - since he’s not all that old and already planning on flying the coop so to speak.

“Why would you leave? You don’t like it there?”