"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
Because wolf-pups can do that much better than silly filly-foals can. Sometimes she scrapes at the old bark with a flex of her front paws as if to test their mettle or just sharpen the nails that poke out of each toe. Her tongue lolls out in a contented pant as her stare strays across the wild playground.
If she feels any measure of loneliness, she doesn’t let on. But it’s there - she’d like to make a friend but part of her thinks not.
So after a little time has passed, the pup slides off the log to roll and tumble about in the grass. She stalks and leaps after grasshoppers and shadows. Howls at her reflection in the ponds she comes across. Sawtooth runs wild with the wind the only thing to encourage her.
If a fairy is about, she doesn’t see it.
Might even mistake it for a dragonfly if she did. Hopefully the fairy would forgive her if she snapped her jaws at it in exploration and play. She’s not really hungry since she stole back to the beach and cracked a few of her mother’s bones open to suck the marrow out. So it wouldn’t be an act of hunger... just plain old curiosity.
Except there seem to be no fairies about. No animal-babies either. Not a foal in sight! Sawtooth frowns then disappears into a thicket full of overgrowth and snow. When she emerges from it, it is as a small winged filly with fangs that perk out from beneath her lips. She spreads her wings and shakes some of the snow off the feathers then repositions the wings at her iridescent blue sides.
“Harrumph!” is all she manages, still looking around at nothing.
At roughly a year old, the stygian girl grew increasingly curious of the world around her. Thus far her small existence had revolved around the lands of Sylva and Taiga, but her mother had spoken of other places as well. Places she had yet to discover for herself. She’d grown increasingly bored mastering her skill set, so today she decided to take a break and venture beyond the realm of what was slowly becoming the normal routine of her life.
The ceaseless wandering carried her further into lands unknown, the only care in the world being which direction she could go in. But a distant howl draws her up short, changing her pace to stalk the source of the peculiar sound. The howl doesn’t rise above the winter wind again, so she leaves her path the nothing but gut instinct.
Peering from below the low bough of pine, she witnesses a wolf pup disappear momentarily before a blue filly emerges from the undergrowth. It doesn’t take the midnight girl any mental self-convincing before she exposes herself to the similarly aged girl nearby. Ignoring the way the shadows cast upon the snow’s white brilliance bend to reach her presence, and feeling winter’s cold breath fluttering the charcoal, wispy wings that cling to her back, she approaches the other confidently.
“Did you kill the wolf?” she asks placidly with a slight title of her ebony head.
07-04-2018, 12:54 AM (This post was last modified: 07-04-2018, 01:03 AM by Titus.)
Quicker, Quicker!
The young winged-ocelot cub scrambles forward, awkwardly stumbling across the ground on paws that felt too large and unfamiliar. It was the perfect plan, the perfect escape. That was until he had somehow shifted into this cat-like creature. A creature that shifted into something smaller than his normal stature with a tail, spots, and paws!
It was terrible!
Everything was going wrong!
How could it? He thinks grumpily to himself as he continues to stumble over his own feet that definitely do not feel like they belong to him. He had escaped from the prison—that’s all that mattered now. It didn’t matter so long as he found his way back home and wasn’t hunt after if anyone saw him. Titus didn’t want to be dragged back to Loess. He didn’t think they would notice him anyway, especially after ignoring him and forgetting he even existed.
He had to find his way home—to Nerine. He had to find her—his twin sister, Venus.
Titus continues to stagger over the snow. His paws feel cold against the bitterness of a season he was experiencing for the first time, but he found the fur clinging onto his skin comforting in the cold. However, it was the distant howl that draws him short in his path. The young boy’s cat-like ears though still holding the equine head shape, flicker in one direction and then the next. His deep nutmeg eyes search out the terrain before him.
Nothing happened.
The spotted half horse and ocelot cub continues forward. He is more alert as he proceeds further along his chosen path. It definitely cannot be them, he tells himself over and over again. How could they find himself so quickly? He made sure that he would not be followed. He would not be found! And if he was to found by them he would kill them, he would cut them apart with his claws and sharp teeth. Titus would never go back there, not in a million years!
He loses himself in his thoughts momentarily thinking about what he will do to the kidnappers if they even dared to try and drag him back. It isn’t until he hears the brushing of plants and snapping of branches and twigs, that he comes back to reality. Titus’ ears flicker, hearing a soft voice within the distance. The boy rounds himself around the bend of a tree nearby, knowing the voice had come from just over there.
Titus quietly pushes himself against the tree. He carefully leans out behind the trunk of the tree, trying to get a look at what lays around the other side of it. The boy is sure it is the kidnappers from Loess. They followed me! I knew they would come! He grumbles silently to himself.
Leaning more out from behind the trunk of the tree, Titus still cannot see them. He takes a slight step forward with his right front paw, but he stumbles, tripping over his other front paw awkwardly. Falling face flat into the snow first, he screams out with a high-pitch yelp, “AAAHHHHHHHH!”.
Titus scrambles, paws throwing up fistful of snow falling all around him, as he stumbles to find his footing. He manages to get up onto his two back legs, but falls forward face into the snow again, yelling out again: “I won’t go back, I won’t go!”
Sawtooth almost thought this place was going to prove as fruitless and boring as the beach. Well... not quite true - the beach was were the dead and dying laid and she had some unusual habits regarding the bones she found there. But the dead never spoke back to er; they just grinned their death-grins and continued to turn whiter and whiter beneath the elements and the sun. However a black filly close to her in age is quick to approach her.
The grin she gives is sly and toothy as she takes in the shadow-gauze wings and the skin as black as Sawtooth’s own eyes. “Stomped it real good, I did!” she says as her little chest puffs out in pride and mirth sparkles in her dark sable eyes. Inwardly she is crowing with delight that the girl has no idea that she is that little wolf. It’s like a new and interesting game to her - a charade that is easy to fake. She leans in close until their noses are inches apart, “Would you like to see it?”
This is whispered conspiratorially of course. She doesn’t want to share her surprise with the entire playground of brats but a cursory glance around confirms it is just the two of them brave enough to be out in the cold. Until her nostrils begin to flare and siphon scents from the brisk air as it blows about them. Hmmm, cat... she thinks with an instinctive note if distaste. If she’d been in wolf-shape, her hackles would have bristled.
Sawtooth was about to shrug off the cat-smell and ask the dark girl again if she wanted to see the nonexistent stomped-on wolf when a scream cuts through the air. She flings her own head up in surprise and gives a snort of agitation as her blue wings shift about her little breathing sides. “What on earth...?!” but she hasn’t time to finish articulating the thought as clumps of snow fly upward not down like snow is supposed to and the stink of cat grows stronger. There is more boyish indignant shouting that she pins her ears back at and with a surging step forward, she is past the black filly and looking back at her as if to say you coming? with a tilt of her head.
Without further hesitation, Sawtooth charges out into the snow to see a half-horse and half-something else flailing about. But nothing is chasing him. So she coughs to get his attention. Then coughs again before shouting at him amidst all the flying snow. “AHEM! What is going on here?” It is clear the girl has no tact whatsoever.
07-23-2018, 09:58 AM (This post was last modified: 07-23-2018, 11:24 AM by Sibella.)
The slight tilt in her corrects itself to upright, watching with a disturbing yellowed gaze as the blue girl brags of her accomplishment. Remaining standing, she does not flinch as the girl pushes the boundaries of their personal space; it was something the stygian girl lacked any knowledge of, as her mother clearly had a serious deficient understanding of the concept. Close proximity was just something that the child had become accustomed to.
"Yes," she replies to the girl's question with a twinge of incredulity. Why wouldn't she want to see a fresh corpse. She also would like to know the precise mechanism about the how part of the story as well, seeing as no blood covered the other girl's bright flesh after she claimed to stomp it. Alas, she has not time to inquire as their conversation is interrupted by flying snow and a flying something else.
The blue winged filly is quick to react first, moving past her to approach whatever had launched itself to land nearby them. Sibella turns to come alongside the girl, while her insubstatntial black wings flutter in the mild breeze brought upon by the babbling creature's flailings. Her dark dome tilts with subtle curiosity as an ear flickers, catching the irritated words of the filly before adding a distasteful, "What's wrong with you?" to the interrogation with a wrinkle of her nose. While the colt/cat creature composes himself, her bored gaze moves to the girl beside her, "Can we just go see the dead wolf now?"
07-29-2018, 04:31 PM (This post was last modified: 07-29-2018, 04:32 PM by Titus.)
titus
one day it's here and then it's gone,
how are you still holding on?
The cold snow pressed against his face for barely a second as he fell again face first. Titus rises quickly onto his paws, nutmeg eyes staring up as he hears the coughing from another. “AHEM! What is going on here?” comes from the blue iridescent roan. It almost feels like he is looking at her in different shades. It makes him dizzy and almost sick to his stomach. Titus is about to say something else until he notices another set of eyes are on him too—the black filly with wings made of shadows. Her words are even shameful, and he wonders what could have possibly been the issue.
One minute he was chased by others, and the second he was being scorned from not wanting to go back. Titus snorts in distaste at them for their snarky comments and childish attitudes of spoiled brats. “Well,” he says sharply finding his voice at last, “I was being chased by someone or something.” Not like they needed to hear the whole story he decided. Titus found sharing such a tale wasn't worth anything to a stranger. He wasn't supposed to trust anyone.
“Dead wolf?” he asks with a curious tilt of his head. Titus had never seen such a thing before, but he knew what such wild beasts were like in the stories his parents told him. “I want to see this dead wolf. Where is it?” He asks without the need to ask for an invitation. Titus became curious already with the idea of seeing a wolf and leaving behind what had happened to him—an embarrassing display.
The cat-like horse takes a step forward from his fallen position. “So, where are we going?”
son of rome and porcia
male, classic champagne appaloosa, ocelot-shifting, wings
08-21-2018, 01:47 PM (This post was last modified: 08-21-2018, 01:47 PM by Sawtooth.)
Sawtooth has no manners. What she lacks in them is made up for in complete wildness. She runs feral most of her days and presses in on the bubble of personal space that belongs to the night-dark girl.
Good thing neither of them have much regard for close proximity’s because Sawtooth has about as much care and energy as a hummingbird.
Her stance shifts at the bell-like note of incredulity that hangs between them. To her it sounded like a challenge - was there really a corpse? Why wouldn’t the other girl want to see it? Where’s the telltale blood? Sawtooth sucks in a noisy breath because the silly brat hadn’t thought that far ahead but...
“Oh you must be wondering where all the blood is! Such an awful mess. Scrubbed it off in the snow I did.” she’s blathering on until more of the snow goes flying as the thing in its midst flounders. Finally the mess resolved itself into a little cat-colt who throws their snark right back at them. As if Sawtooth was even paying attention to that!
No, she’s focused right in on the whole ‘being chased’ thing and her black eyes flowed with the unholy light of curiosity. “Being chased by who or what?” because she really cannot help from asking him. It was too juicy of a tidbit to not worry at it with the tooth and claw of her young burning mind.
Sawtooth shrugs; “Back over there. C’mon!” and just like that, he’s accepted into their curious corpse-seeking trio. Well, it’s a trio now when before it was just two fillies that shared the same morbid fascinations. Now he’s part of that and Sawtooth leads them back to the thicket she’d initially burst out of.
The whole time she’s thinking how she’s going to pull this off. One minor (or major) detail she left out was that the wolf wasn’t quite dead. That’s because she was the wolf! So without hesitation, she plunged into the snowy bracken and doesn’t wait for the others. She also shifts quickly which tends to be more painful but bites back the yelp as her bones pop and twist into that other shape.
She finds the mess of paw prints and hoof prints and promptly sprawls out in the midst of it, thereby playing dead and biding her time until they discover her supposed corpse.
@[Sibella] @[Titus] she’s trying to prank them lol
A single brow raise is all that Sibella uses to indicate the registration of the cobalt girl’s words. It’s as if she’d read the ebony girl’s internal wonderings regarding the lack of blood splattered on her coat. By that time the creature bumbling about in the snow has finally righted himself, and the stygian girl spares him a casual half glance. She muses if maybe she should care about his vague answer of being chased, but finds she just can’t make herself be bothered to pry for more information; she simply doesn’t care.
Turns out, she doesn’t have to think much on it as the hyperactive filly tries to coerce a better explanation out of him anyway. Even then, her attention remains predominantly fixated on the ‘when’ part of being able to see this dead wolf.
And just as rapid as the girl’s thinking patterns seem to fire, the blue girl is bounding into a snow covered thicket, leaving the other two hardly enough time to catch up as she disappears behind the frosted brush.
Pushing through the brush, Sibella follows the trail of prints to wear a small mass of fur lay motionless. With as much of a curious gaze as she could bare, the stygian girl glances around her briefly, looking for the other filly. She was nowhere in sight, it seemed. Wasting no more time, she approaches the wolf boldly, head tilted with morbid fascination. The creature appeared uncharacteristically round and whole for something that was claimed to have been stomped bloody. Speaking of blood, where was it?
”Only one way to make sure it’s dead,” she says flatly either to herself, or the cat-colt if he had followed her.
Pulling the shadows close, she drew them upward and beneath her dark forelock, congealing and hardening them into the sharpened point of an onyx horn. Lowering her crown, she slowly begins to drive the end towards the wolf’s shoulder…
one day it's here and then it's gone,
how are you still holding on?
Titus shrugs his shoulder at the blue roan’s question. “Nothing apparently,” he mumbles softly to himself. If any more questions were to be asked, Titus was ready to shrug them away. However, it seemed the two had another previous event in mind.
It seems their corpse-hunting is already in motion as the blue roan takes off towards the thicket of snow. The other black filly takes off too, so he follows the duo quickly as he can with awkward steps in the snow and paws. Eventually, he will get the hang of this or so he hopes.
The black filly pushes through the brush, and Titus follows her right behind. She already seems to be the one leading them towards the body. The blue roan girl was nowhere to be seen after he came onto the other side of the brush.
Titus moves a little to her right-side, getting a good look at the wolf footprint trail she follows. “Where did the other girl go?” he asks the black filly. It was just a little strange to him that the other girl suddenly disappeared.
However, he comes to a quick halt when he sees the wolf laying on the ground. He isn’t as bold-feeling as the black filly is right now. Titus has never even seen a wolf, so he is a bit shocked at the scene. “You don’t think it’s dead?” He says back to the black filly. Well, there certainly was no blood from what he could see. He knew when things were dead they were supposed to have some sort of red-stained substance coming out of them. Unusually they smelled horrible too.
The boy takes a deep inhale of the air around them. “It doesn’t smell either,” he adds to the black filly who already is making an attempt to see if the wolf-thing is actually dead. Titus takes a couple more steps towards the wolf-body and black girl, just standing a little back from her as she works some sort of dark, shadowy like magic he has never seen before. He doesn’t dare ask any questions now but watches with wide-eyes at what the black filly is about to do.
son of rome and porcia
male, classic champagne appaloosa, ocelot-shifting, wings
