I get scared for reasons I don't know (feast)

[Valkyrie]

VALKYRIE

Though her inability to shift still bothered Valkyrie, she did her best not to let it show. Perhaps she was more like her family who couldn’t - it made her feel a little bit better to discover that there was both a grandfather and a grandmother who couldn’t, and there was nothing wrong with them. And she was never made to feel like she was less because of it - but she still wouldn’t have minded. There was a little flutter in her heart every time she watched an eagle take flight from one of Hyaline’s pines, or when she imagined the minuscule world that a frog might live in. Even if it was just one single shift, just the chance to see something a little different.

And she tried not to be jealous, she really did. She kept that sour feeling locked up tight with the flutter, fretting over how it made her seem ungrateful for the happy life she had.

The promise of a feast thrown by the Baltians was a welcome excitement, and the plants provided by the strange little frogs ensured that she wouldn’t even need to shift in order to join in. Myrna did not complain about having to travel by land, though Valkyrie felt guilty about it anyway, and she had just about worked herself into being in a sour mood because of the imagined bitterness that, once they finally arrived on the shore, she almost didn’t want to go at all.

But it is hard to be in a bad mood around her sisters, and when she looks to Myrna for guidance before entering the water she can feel the grip of jealousy ease a little.

“Are you ready?” She asks her older sister, though really the question is more directed at herself.

@ Viszla (and if anyone cares to join!)

[Viszla]

Myrna has been staring at the water, peering into the softly lapping waves as though she might be able to see Baltia far below. There is definitely something there, an unnatural glowing that reminds her of stories about Ischia. So much of the water lands seem bioluminescent, she thinks, but with her own glowing and iridescent markings she is not one to think anything over-decorated. The pale young mare paws at the soil with one curious cloven hoof (currently her only non-equine feature) and then looks up at the sound of her sister’s voice.

Are you ready, Valkyrie asks, and Myrna’s blue eyes fall to the pair of bundles between them.

Myrna had considered becoming a seal, one of the few aquatic shapes she had mastered, but had chosen instead to take the gift from the Baltians so that she can be sure it is entirely safe. Her caution is probably unwarranted (their mother had condoned their trip, after all, and wouldn’t have done so if there were danger), but she cannot help it. The carefree nature of her childhood had vanished on the night she died, and though she is quite far from a somber creature, Myrna is far less trusting than she had once been.

She takes her role as older sister seriously, and nods firmly in reply, saying: “Yep!” and stepping forward to swallow the less-unpleasant-than-she’d-expected mouthful of magic plants.

The changes come over her quickly, moving faster still as she steps into the water. What those changes are, she cannot be sure. Her shapeshifting abilities have given her an innate understanding of her own anatomy, and she is sure, somehow, that she could now breathe the water as easily as she is now breathing air.

“Are you ready?” She asks, glancing over her shoulder to see wether or not her crimson sibling has taken the plants and is ready to swim down.

@Valkyrie