"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
Help me out before I drown Save me now before I give up
He had expected more resistance when he had entered into Sylva. From the looks Oceane had given him regarding Sabra and the stories he had heard about the autumn land (the dark memories he personally held of the place) he had expected to find Beqanna’s bottom-feeders. A motley crew of psychopaths, murderers, and narcissists. But that’s not what he had found at all.
The woods had been strangely silent, the only sound was the soft rustling of burnt red and yellow leaves above him as they brushed against each other in the chilly breeze. Empty, no matter where he had looked. It had been more than easy to take up the mantle in Sabra’s absence, much to Oceane’s delight. He, however, still had misgivings but he kept them to himself. His twilight partner had her hands full already and this was a way to ease her mind, by keeping Sylva in the grasp of someone she could trust. He wonders what Magnus would make of him now, what he would say seeing his troubled son ruling a territory. Would he be proud? Or would Ledger crumble beneath the weight of it all like his sire had so many times before?
She could trust him, of that there was no doubt. However, he wanders his new “home” and sees only shadows where there should be light. He misses the hidden cove in Loess, he misses the few friends he had made there, he misses his children. Most of all, he misses her. It’s not the same as it had been before, when they had been able to curl up into each other every night in their cave. He feels their distance like a heavy brick on his heart and his mental health begins to wane with each sleepless night he spends in the woods, each night where he feels her absence like a physical wound carved into him where she would usually be.
Temporary, she had said. It would all be temporary.
It’s been well over a year since he had stepped foot in the meadow, in the land he had once been convinced he would never leave. There are shattered memories here as well, lurking just out of his periphery, but the presence of others does much to ease the loneliness that had followed him through fiery limbs and bent trees. The old Ledger would have kept to himself, would have simply observed from afar from beneath the shaded safety of a wide oak.
But he isn’t that broken anymore.
So he approaches the horse nearest to him, warmth reflecting in his gold-speckled eye as he looks at the other with a small smile. “Hey. What’s that you’re up to?” He asks with genuine interest, casting his one-eyed gaze over whatever he had caught the other one doing.
BUT I HOPE I NEVER LOSE THE BRUISES THAT YOU LEFT BEHIND
She drifts alone, as she nearly always does.
There was no part of this land that she called home. No part that claimed even a small part of her heart, including the Tephran jungles she had grown up in. For a girl born amongst the flames of war it would have seemed fitting that she might grow into something from their ashes, and maybe she has—but it is not anything that belongs to them.
She is something of her own making, a weapon forged in her own fires, iron shaped until she was something new.
Except she didn’t feel new.
The relief that she had been certain would accompany her panther shifting never comes, and what she had thought would be a puzzle piece slipping into place still felt like a gaping hole.
All her life she has lived with being the first-born of the panther king and his angel, but it was a strange thing, to be born before their love ever existed. When she had been younger she had been certain that if she could shift into a panther like Atrox that perhaps he would take notice of her; that she would not just be another nameless face to his long list of offspring—another side effect of another conquest. She had watched from an ever-growing distance as her parents became more entwined, crossing that line from game to end game.
Firion and the children that followed were undoubtedly born of love, but Aislyn was still a ghost, a mere echo that no one ever seemed to hear.
She kept to her panther form now, mostly, even if it was not the solution she thought it would be. She had wanted it for so long that it would be a shame to not master it, lest whatever powers that be saw fit to take it away just as quickly as they had bestowed it.
It would make sense to not travel the common lands as a predator, but at some point, over the past few years, she had simply stopped caring. It should have been clear that she was not hunting; or so she thinks, at least. She traverses the meadow with languid, prowling steps, and she would have continued this way if a small group in the distance had not decided to make a show of being nervous. With a clenching of her jaw, she decides to shift, her velvety black pelt stretching over her equine form, the splashes of white following suit. Shaking her head slightly at the weight of her antlers, her back suddenly goes rigid at the sound of someone nearby.
Her vibrant eyes flash to his face, and if there is a flicker of irritation on her own it is only because he had caught her off guard—and she hated making mistakes. “Nothing,” she answers a little too quickly, her voice sounding shorter than she had intended. But she clears her throat, and though her expression remains guarded, her tone has leveled out to something more approachable when she says, “I forgot not everyone here can recognize a horse in their shifted form. I guess the pink eyes weren't a big enough clue for them.”
08-13-2021, 04:50 PM (This post was last modified: 08-13-2021, 04:52 PM by Ledger.)
Help me out before I drown Save me now before I give up
The “old bear of Loess” had once been the same way, having no tether to any land in particular and spending most of his life constantly seeking a place where he might become grounded. He had found it, after centuries of searching, in Loess. Everything that he had ever wanted, everything he had always dreamed of when he had been a lost lonely colt hidden away from Magnus by his “mother” in the Falls. A home where he felt wanted, where he belonged. The family that he had always prayed for.
He feels them slipping between his fingers, his anxiety and doubts flaring the longer he stays in Sylva. Which hasn’t been very long at all. What he needs is a distraction and he finds it in her, the young shifter.
Ledger had also been a first-born child, the first and last between Raaquel and Magnus. And that is where his similarities with the young panther-shifter ended. His parents story had been doomed from the start, a mere blip on the radar between Joelle and Librette, and then she had been viciously taken from the both of them (father and son) before it could ever be anything more. He had watched from the sidelines as the sire who didn’t even know he existed entwined himself with the adoptive mother he was forced on, a mother who had known the truth of who Ledger was and kept him secret anyways.
And then there was the bear.
The bear who had been a gift and a curse. The bear he had not been born with but been made into.
There had been so many nights when he had pleaded with the stars above, as if Carnage was listening, to take back the beast he had placed inside of him. Yet Carnage only did anything if it benefitted him, if it suited his whims, and so he had been disjointed with his supernatural other half. A rift between horse and bear. It wasn't untill magic had been wiped from the board, when he had been forced to live without the thing that he had been so sure he hated, that he started to see it less as a curse and began to warily accept it.
There had been many mistakes since then, many times when he lost control, many times when he had nearly given up in all ways. It was the bear that seemed to be the glue keeping him together. And now that he has seen his daughter (she who carries this same affliction) turn out rather normal and happy, his son who lives to shift into his panda self, he doesn’t look at it like a curse at all. Not anymore.
Not that he would ever thank Carnage for what he had done. The brands and scars littered across his skin speaking of a lifetime of torture that the gift of shifting could never make up for.
He had caught her in mid-shift, from tropical cat to antlered equine, and he can’t help but grin at the rather guilty “Nothing” she gives him. He raises the brow of his good eye as she clears her throat and glances over to the small gathering that had gotten nervous in her presence before looking back at her. She is wary of him and he doesn’t begrudge her that but he decides to ease her mind, just a little. “Pink eyes?” He asks her, genuinely curious because he had never heard of this before. And then he shifts into the white bear, his long claws digging into the soil beneath them as his beady predator’s eye turns back to the group which suddenly disperses before them. “There will always be those afraid of things they can’t understand.” He says gruffly, knowing very well he had been one of them once. Shifting back into his equine body, he throws his flaxen forelock from his face, revealing the empty socket beneath and curiosity dancing between russet and gold-flecks of the one that remained. “Now what’s this about shifters and pink eyes?”
BUT I HOPE I NEVER LOSE THE BRUISES THAT YOU LEFT BEHIND
Despite her own ability, she’s had little experience with other shifters. Her nomadic tendencies drove her away from the general populace, narrowing her knowledge to panthers, and panthers alone. To limit it even further, it was only her immediate family—her father and her full siblings—that she is familiar with. Truthfully, she isn’t even sure if there are other panthers, though logic tells her there must be; it was no secret that her father’s lines had crept into nearly every part of Beqanna before he finally chose to settle with her mother. She is certain the ability turns up somewhere, but she has never met any of them.
Because of this, she does not really understand what is customary amongst shifters; if it is normal for predators to shift during conversation without the intent of attacking.
When he shifts into a polar bear she steps back, not in fear, but in preparation. There is a moment where her ears fall back, hidden by her mane, as she tries to calculate which would be better to fight with—antlers, or claws and fangs? Her blood warms beneath her bi-colored coat, a black cat growl rumbling lowly in her chest, begging to be let loose.
He shifts back just as quickly, and slowly she relaxes the defenses she had been so quick to raise, though she now eyes him somewhat suspiciously. Her muscles loosen beneath her splashed coat just slightly, the wind shifting a black forelock aside to reveal her vibrant, fuschia-colored eyes. “Mine,” she clarifies in answer to his question, the single word still holding some of the previous tension in the shape of it.
“I’m not entirely sure where the color came from, actually. My father’s eyes are yellow and my mother’s are brown.” Her shoulders roll in something akin to a careless shrug. “Abnormal eye color for a species is usually a pretty good indicator of magic of some kind. A panther with pink eyes should be a clue.” She has learned long ago that not everyone was quite as observant as she is. She supposes that is something that had been fine tuned in her solitude, when she was left with nothing to do but observe. “My name is Aislyn,” she offers him, before asking in that forward way of hers, “Who are you?”
Help me out before I drown Save me now before I give up
It had not been his intention to put her on guard and he gives her an apologetic grin when he is back on all four hooves. He had heard the rumble in her throat and his bear had almost responded with one of his own but he has a better handle on the beast now and the ursine calms and burrows itself within him until called again. The young antlered mare seems to relax now that his bear has been banished but he doesn’t miss the wariness in her gaze. Not easy to trust, he thinks. Good. Some might fault her for it but he silently approves and has no qualms in trying to earn it for himself, finding the young shifter to be interesting enough to want to know better. Or perhaps that was just his loneliness calling.
The older stallion had never thought himself an expert on shifters although he had ran into quite a few of them over his long years of life. He was aware that there was much magic to Beqanna, more than there had ever been before, and wouldn’t doubt that the knowledge he did have was a small pebble in a wide sea. Her hypothesis on eye color is an interesting one and he frowns, not because he particularly disagrees with it, but because he’s trying to remember if he’s ever seen another shifter with unique eyes before. Perhaps he had just never noticed before. “Interesting theory.” He responds when she explains her thought process. “I have children who were born shifters but none with eyes as unique as yours.” He admits, thinking of Link and Dawn who shared the same russet coloring as his own. “But I wasn’t born a shifter. I was Made.” He finally says after a beat, wondering if that made a difference at all.
”Aislyn.” She introduces herself boldly and he can’t help the grin that naturally forms at her forwardness. “I’m Ledger.” He offers easily before raising his eye to her antlers, revealing the claw marks etched over the thin gray skin that covers his empty socket. “Have you ever had to use those?” He asks curiously, wondering if they were sometimes a burden or if the weight of them was nothing to the likes of her.
BUT I HOPE I NEVER LOSE THE BRUISES THAT YOU LEFT BEHIND
She can’t help the short laugh in her throat when he mentions that his children did not share the same unique eye color as herself, her dark lips twisting into a smile. “I don’t know if I’ve ever met anyone with an eye color quite like mine, not even my siblings.” Among the five other full siblings that she shared, the newest twin girls would be the closest, with that lovely rose-gold shade they boasted, but still nothing close to the vivid pink of hers. As if the strange white markings splattered across her black coat was not enough. She would never be the kind that could simply blend in, even if her colors were not as bright and flashy as some. The stark, almost chaotic way the white collided with the black always seemed to draw their attention, and the pair of bright pink eyes seemed to hold it.
“I could not shift until I was an adult, so I am not sure if I was born or made,” she tells him, though there is a strange sort of guardedness to the way she speaks of it, as if she did not want to go into detail. She hated admitting how much it bothered her as a child that she could not shift, when all she had wanted was something that marked her as being a daughter of Atrox. She does not know what changed, or what took so long for her to be able to tap into this part of herself, but she is grateful to have finally found it. “I’m just glad I can do it at all,” is the only glimmer of her authentic feelings that she lets slip.
“Ledger,” she echoes his name back to him with a small nod, and though she notices the scars on his face and the eye socket that sits empty, she does not ask. She has seen her mother in a similar state, and had learned quickly it was best to not ask questions (in that case it was her mother’s seemingly lack of trauma surrounding the situation that had unnerved her). Her attention shifts from him and back to herself, and his question causes her to tense. “Yes,” is her short answer, and there is a moment where it appears that is all she will say. She has not actually used her antlers since the day she had earned them; the day she had found herself on a battlefield she was not looking for, and had been forced to fight a clone of Voracious, and then of herself. “I try not to, though. I already learned the damage they can do.”
Help me out before I drown Save me now before I give up
There is a conviction in her that he rather envies. A confidence in who she was, her abilities, a way she settles so easily into her own skin. To be so young and confident (he can’t mistake it for anything else), what would that have felt like if he had embraced the shift instead of running from it all those years ago? She smiles and places herself in a category all her own, separate from even her siblings. He can’t help but smile back, charmed by her certainty and curious to the wariness that sometimes flickers through her expression or, like now, comes out in her voice when she mentions being unsure of where her abilities exactly came from.
“If you were Made, I think you would remember.” He says gently then pauses, wondering if perhaps that’s not exactly true. Oceane had not always been the wish granter she was now and she hadn’t clawed her way through trial and ordeal to do so. “Though I can only speak to my experience I suppose.” He amends after this thought, turning his good eye back to her. “I’m just glad that I can do it.” He is quiet for a moment, reflecting on those words and trying to see where they registered with him. “Me too.” He finally admits, surprised at how easy it was to decide so. It hadn’t always been that way.
They are beautiful antlers and seem to fit her, as if they had always been there. However he is quick to realize they may be a soft spot, observant as ever to the subtle way her muscles flex when he asks about them. The impression that she is not keen to truly speak of them makes him all the more curious but he is silent, giving her the space and liberty to speak more if she wished. Eventually she does and his smile fades slightly, a tremor of tension thrumming through his freed heart. “I’m sure you only did what you had to.” He offers quietly. Despite the predator that lurked inside him, he was not a killer at heart. From the way she guards herself, despite the predator in her, he doesn’t think she is one either.
BUT I HOPE I NEVER LOSE THE BRUISES THAT YOU LEFT BEHIND
She is confident, for the most part.
She had been born in the middle of a firestorm, and had been forced to learn to run when she could hardly walk. Her first breaths had been full of smoke, and she had learned to choke it down along with what she would later learn was fear.
And she has been doing so ever since—smothering fear when she felt it, reacting rather than running.
Sometimes it paid off, but other times it felt like a mistake.
“I suppose so,” she finally says in response to his quietly spoken statement. It had felt like something she had to do at the time; it had felt unavoidable. But looking back, it seemed like weakness—to attack someone she claimed to care about. Had she even looked for an alternative? She had been so much younger then; impulsive, and not nearly as clear-headed. She looks back on that battlefield and the force-field that had held her captive inside of it and wonders if she could have slammed her antlers against the shield rather than into Voracious.
It did not matter anymore, though.
It was in the past, and it would stay there.
“What’s your story, Ledger?” she suddenly asks him, turning her bright-colored eyes to his face. She needed a break from talking or thinking about herself, and while she did not expect him to spill all of his secrets she is sure anything he says will be a welcome respite from the thoughts in her head.
