While her mother had to go on some important errand, Mazikeen was encouraged to explore. Something seemed off about her mother that evening but the black and white filly did not say anything - just watched her head off towards Pangea. The air felt heavy for a brief moment before Mazikeen shrugged it off and shifted into a fox, retaining her white coat and black markings, and padded off into the forest.

Now, though the moon and stars shine bright overhead somewhere, the shadows are thick beneath the summer-green branches in the woods and only get darker the farther fox-Mazikeen goes. She’s abandoned the usual pathways she keeps to as a horse, following the tracks made by countless other hooves as they move through this land. Now she wants to explore all the places she can find in this smaller form, climbing up logs and crawling beneath low-hanging branches.

She’s filled with the bravado of a youngster who has not yet seen any consequences. Not any severe ones, at least. She might be tossed to the ground for a bad decision in a spar with Daye or scolded for worrying her mother after missing a meet-up time, but those have been nothing. Even when she faced off with a wolf, it had ended up being another shifter.

So as she slinks through the shadows, this young fox doesn't feel fear - only excitement about what new adventures might be found this night.

Movement in the dark forest nearby suggests that someone is close, though all the white fox can see is shadows. She continues for a time, but slower - checking behind herself constantly. She starts to feel a prickle of something close to anticipation in the back of her skull a few moments before a wave of something else hits her. Fear is not an emotion she consciously knows well enough to name. So when it is pushed into her, filling her body and surrounding her like she is suspended in water, she does not know what it is. She only feels the symptoms - her orange eyes widening in surprise, her small heart beating wildly, and the way her limbs lock and freeze her where she is.

When Mazikeen first turns, at first she still just sees darkness but a shape seems to be settled right at its heart - shadow turned solid. Her heart continues to race, though she tells herself she is just curious about the figure, nothing more. He is so unlike anything she has ever seen before - and then she tries to shift into whatever he is, but there is no response from her ability. She has not encountered many animals that she has not been able to shift into which makes her wonder whether this is an animal at all.

Perhaps it is something else entirely.

What she manages to shift into, instead of the shadow creature, is a wolf - something bigger, which makes her feel better. The choice between fight or flight has always resulted in one answer for her so she stands her ground, turning around to fully face the shadowy figure she has a hard time focusing on - the fur on her back rising in what she tells herself is a warning, not fear.

The fear she had not known well enough to name, that she had denied, pulses freely through her when he lunges for her. It is as if someone had broke open a dam and so much more than the wave that had hit her before. Not once yet in her life has she felt fear like this - but this is to be a night of many firsts. She is too surprised to even move at first. Only managing to twist so that instead of her throat, when his teeth find purchase they dig into the crest of her neck.

Maze - who prides herself in being brave - cries out as those teeth tear fur and flesh. Pain, of course, but there is surprise in her howl too. More shattering of the world her naive young mind had created - one in which she could not be harmed, where she did not cry. She feels her blood begin to pool around the puncture. Her first real injury. Part of her expected this to be like her tumble with Daye - less a fight and more of a wrestling match. She still doesn’t understand fully the danger here, still believes that with a few short moves she’ll be out of this little problem and wander free and alive back to her parents.

The only thing going on in her head is the pounding of her racing heart. The drumming beat driving everything else right out. The young wolf acts because she must, twisting away and growling as she does - bringing a large black paw up to swipe at him or maybe just push at him

It still does not occur to her to run. It should but there are no such thoughts even if any could make it over the roar of fear inside of her mind.

Snarling, she snaps her teeth at him - attacking him right back instead of leaving, but she pulls her punches and does not really try to do damage with her sharp canines. Only to warn, only to deter. Surely if she shows she is not going to make it easy, he'll back off... right?