Along the bank of the river, he reaches out, testing, pushing his boundaries, drawing them to him. Like his dam, they seek him out willingly because he has convinced them of their love for him. They do not see him as a monster, indeed, even as monsters go, among the horses of Beqanna, he is one of the least. His parts are natural, they function as they should and blend seamlessly.
He is nearly normal.
To them, he is just as he should be, perfect, and it is right to love him. His plaintive call beckons them from their dens to help him, because that is what you do, when you love somebody, you help them.
The rabbit comes slowly. It is often rabbits, he does not know why. Their nature is not a trusting one, and so he cannot fathom why they answer so readily, but they come, and he is glad of it. When it reaches him, the rabbit stands, furred toes pressing firm against the blood-hot skin of of his scaled forelegs, ears forward, whiskers back. Its nose twitches, dark eye bright.
My name is Dreamscar, he would tell it, if he could talk, thank you for coming to help me..
The rabbit does not understand, of course, his gift was never in communication. Perplexed, the rabbit sits down again beside him and begins to wash its face with its paws. For a moment, he watches curiously, amber eyes glittering, and when he reaches his beak out, the rabbit transfers its attentions to him again, licking at the curved bit of horn the way it might one of its own kits. Dreamscar chirrups softly.
The rabbit screams when he strikes.
Unlike his dam, he can never make them accept the pain as part of loving him. He doesn't know what makes the difference, but they scream every time. With a quick pounce, his talons snatch the rabbit, rending flesh, crushing, until they find the spinal cord and sever it at last, ending the panicked crying. Undead but beyond feeling, the rabbit fades away slowly into the night, unaware of the colt's feeding.
For his part, he wants nothing of its meat. It makes him ill to feed on so much, makes him kick and roll and groan. Instead, he tears at the soft fur of its belly, letting blood spill bright against the dull ground, and with a scientific precision, pulls out the innards, swallowing whole the stomach and its partially digested contents. Small hunger sated, the colt returns to his lovestruck dam, leaving the largest portion of the rabbit to the crows that have begun to follow him.
At the edges of the forest where the trees border close to the frothing river, the black mare calls to her blood-splashed son joyfully, but when she trots forward to meet him it is with a limp, and when he falls into her, intent on seeking comfort , as many foals his age will do, through suckling, he finds no milk. Her teats, cut and punctured by her son's beak, are swollen and sore with infection. Hippogryph groans softly as he tries, butting aggressively to encourage the milk to let down, but it is to no avail. She has run dry, and with few teeth to grasp and chew, he must make do a bloodier way.
09-15-2019, 04:55 PM
(This post was last modified: 09-15-2019, 04:55 PM by Jesper.)
He remains disappointed that his hunt in the Forest yielded no action. Jesper had high hopes of a fruitful trek to the mainland. Nevertheless, he is patient and determined. He would not give up. He would just take a break. A brief detour to the river. He had not realized how dark it was. The fox moves silently alongside the river. His stride is light and peppy with his tail bouncing off of his hocks with each step. Jesper moves with purpose as he strolls in the weak, winter sun. The frigid air combs through his thick silver pelt but, can not reach past his dense undercoat.
His triangular ears turn in the direction of a rustle. His gaze follows and, Jesper finds himself watching a dark figure pounce on its unsuspecting prey. His sharp gaze makes out a quadruped with a feathers upon its chest, talons instead of front hooves and, a beak instead of a muzzle. His hue is similar to Jesper's equine pelt though, the hair shafts possess a smoky tip.
The fox watches curiously for a moment or, two. He wonders if the being is a shifter like him. If so, it appears as though he is able to assume a form that is part-equine and part-avian. Or, perhaps, this is an entirely new creature. The gray and white canine offers him a friendly smile to indicate he means no harm. Out of curiosity, he studies the horse-bird for a few more moments before he pads towards the edge of the river. Carefully, Jesper balances himself on the bank of the river and, reaches his tongue out to the cold water for a satisfying drink.
@[dreamscar]
09-17-2019, 06:15 PM
(This post was last modified: 09-17-2019, 06:30 PM by Dreamscar.)
Dreamscar has thrown himself to the ground in a sulky huff, lying propped up against the thick pillars of his mother’s forelegs, and angles grumpy but harmless bites at her knees. Hippogryph quiets for a moment, choosing a steadier stance, and returns to her wild-eyed discourse, talking to no-one. She rarely stays quiet, yet never says much that seems worth saying. His name crosses her lips several times. In truth, the dark colt is not even sure that this word is his name, it could just be some random thing the mare’s cracked mind put together, in fact, he is certain that is exactly what it is, even if it is intended to be a name. A bit of raw nonsense, or maybe a rare moment of clarity for her. It would be hard for anyone to tell, let alone the unsocialized youngster biting petulantly at her leg.
Certainly he is nobody’s idea of a good dream, even if he is not the worst of monsters.
His belly roils slightly as the small bit of blood and meat that accompanied his meal is digested. His physiology was clearly a misturn of his parents’ magics to make him require a diet of roughage when he is unable to chew, to make him unable to digest large portions of meat, but to outfit him with the weaponry of a bird of prey. His stomach bellows once again and with a small half-whine, he rubs the scaled back of one curled, taloned, claw against the ridge of his eye in a steady, slow, repeat - self-soothing.
Once. Twice. Thrice. Amber eyes flutter open and, unexpectedly, find themselves looking straight into the ice-blue gaze of an observing fox.
He knows foxes. Sometimes they steal the carcasses of the rabbits and woodchucks from under the crows’ beaks. The fox smiles but Dreamscar does not reciprocate. The corners of his mouth, where the horn of his beak becomes flesh, are upturned naturally, but completely immovable, a sort of permanent, clownish, smirk. He also does not know what a smile could mean, as his dam has never done it, and he has never been physically near enough to anyone else to have seen it done. It only serves to unsettle the colt, the opposite of its intended purpose.
He puts his foreclaw down slowly, pressing it back to the cold, stoney, ground, and lifts himself up again to all four legs. His unease has rippled into Hippogryph and her ears have fallen back into her wild mane as she casts about for the threat, her yellowed teeth bared, but the colt brushes his avian head against her chest.
It’s nothing, Mama, not words, but she understands, relieving the tension of her skin, while, on ungainly bird legs, Dreamscar turns and approaches the fox in a half crouch. He is not shy with his love inducement and wears it thick around him like too much cologne, a colorless smog of protection against those that would harm him.
Who are you, what do you want? Again, not words, but clacking beak and the scant feathers across his chest standing on end as though they are enough to make him appears larger than he is. For all her constant chatter, Hippogryph cannot teach her beaked son to speak, he has learned to mimic only a rare few words, few of which seem appropriate just now. The fox has turned it's gaze away to drink and, already a hunter, the colt's crouch deepens as if to pounce, though he is too far away for more than a defensive lunge.
I can't eat a fox, but I can definitely kill one!
@[Jesper]
Jesper's body language may appear as though he has let his guard down. That he may not be paying attention. On the contrary, his canine senses are so acute that he knows quite vividly what is going on around him, even if he isn't looking. He approached the mother and son, in his fox form, for two reasons. The first is that Jesper figures the lad's dam would feel less threatened by a woodland creature than a strange stallion. Hopefully, the kid also feels less threatened. The second reason is simply that Jesper was already in this body so, why change?
His furry triangular ears twitch with each lap he takes of the refreshing river. They also catch the rustle of grass as the bird-horse pulls himself up on all fours. The canine continues to lap greedily at the cool water though, he can feel the intensity of a mother's gaze bearing into his soul. Next, he catches the indistinguishable clatter of the lad's beak. Jesper listens though is unable to discern what is being said. All of the other shifters he has met are able to speak the same language as him. Had this kid not yet learned to speak? Or, was he not a shifter, after all?
Jesper had yet to speak to either of them so, he could not be sure if a language barrier actually exists. He had learned from experience that a talking fox seemed to earn him quite a perplexed look and, usually a head tilt. For the sake of not trying to upset the mother, the fox-shifter keeps quiet. However, he could feel the young male's gaze fixated hungrily upon him. It made him uncomfortable enough that Jesper decides it is best to return to his equine body. I am not your next meal, kid, he muses to himself. He shifts smoothly and, in mere seconds, the rump of a black desert bred stallion faces the boy. Jesper makes no effort to communicate with or, look at, this strange pair. His hope is that the sudden morph from fox to horse has the bird-horse questioning what other magic the black possesses and, he will hold off on eyeing him as the next chew toy. In the meantime, Jesper's senses stay hypervigilant. He continues to press his rubbery lips into the cool water though, he is only pretending to sip.
@[dreamscar]
When he lunges forward, it is powerful, thrust forward by strong haunches and landing on legs designed for heavy impact. The claws curl instinctively, though they grab only the earth underfoot, and he exhales in a sharp hiss of breath, warning the fox to keep back. Yet, even as he does so, he finds that something else entirely is before him The fox's features distort and change and suddenly what stands only a few feet away is a black stallion, coat scarred but glossy and the bronzed highlights of his mane glowing warmly in the spring sun. The colt squeals and leaps back, clumsy and careless, and with a cry of alarm he tries to turn hastily, a tangle of claws and hooves and fear, but slips on a slick incline and falls instead, sliding closer to the drinking stallion.
He panics.
Dreamscar might be forgiven for failing to read basic equine body language when his only example is his mother. Hippogryph is not the best representative, hiding in the bushes and murmuring to herself, stopping and starting at nothing, and the trance-like silence that falls on her when conditions are just right. She barely blinks, barely breathes, during these moments, she is somewhere else. It does not occur to Dreamscar that there is anything wrong with her fits and moods, it is the way things have always been, and although he does not suffer from the same derangements, it is understandable that he might assume they are normal things. He does know they are nothing to do with his magic. His magic only makes her love him with a mad devotion that can be seen flickering in her eyes when they rest on the half-bird colt. Now, however, when he cries piteously for his dam's protection, she does not see him, cannot hear him, because she has fallen into such a silence. She is a dark statue in the shadows, head craned awkwardly to one side and only her tail blowing in the gentle breeze.
He sees her, sees her stillness, and feels his heart squeeze in its vice of fear. In anguish, he tries to awaken her, tries to throw so much magic at her that she has to feel it, has to wake up, but it makes no difference. Whether he is too far away, whether he misses his aim, or whether he simply does not have that power, he cannot revive her. Dreamscar looks at the stallion again, white showing around amber irises. The horse has not moved and he chances another attempt at standing with a flurry of uncoordinated movements. He stumbles, talons scratching desperate furrows into the mud of the bank, grasping at anything solid, but when he finally finds purchase, it's his own back leg he has grabbed and he falls again, bleeding now. The tumble deposits him with a thud against Jesper's back legs and he lies still, but for the hysterical heaving of his mud-coated sides as he pants, beak and eyes wide.
@[Jesper]
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Jesper