"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
Beneath the shrouded cover of the great red trees the air is colder, crisper. It takes the right conditions for snow to break from the clouds and descend upon the upturned branches, just the right amount of humidity mixed with freezing temperatures. Though still early in the season, it seems that this particular winter will be a harsh one for those who linger near Taiga; a light dusting has already begun to trickle through the canopy down to where Circinae lingers. It should bother her, she knows this, because she’s spent her childhood in a place of unbearable heat - but it doesn’t, because she’s also equipped now to deal with things like colder nights. Being a wolf had its advantages after all.
She’s starting to like the feel of her second skin now when she puts it on. There’s a sense of independence and a lack of fear that follow her like wanton dogs when she leaves the comforts of her home and she has Ruan to thank for that. The gift he had given her was hardly commonplace, as far as gifts go, and it was long past time she return the favor. Their “family meeting” had reminded her of that, in all of its awkward glory. While she pads softly through the twist of worn paths she recalls how strange it had been to watch Ruan and Reagan interact (a terribly uncomfortable situation that had drawn unnecessary attention to her) while the rest of them had looked on. The memory leaves a hint of doubt in her mind.
Best to keep her nose to the grindstone and far, no: very far away from her Alpha. She stops, shifting back to the curious green mare she’s always been (albeit a bit fluffier) and raises her numb lips to call out a polite, “Reagan!” The sound bounces across the trunks and soon quiets, but she knows the Queen will hear.
Circinae
I need the crack of a whip, I need some blood in the cut
03-04-2017, 12:31 AM (This post was last modified: 03-04-2017, 12:35 AM by Terra.)
when you speak dreams and reality collide
She explores the Taiga as a fox - the second form she’d ever learned.
She feels so much more connected as a beast - while her sight is comparable in this form, both her hearing and sense of smell are enhanced, and the forest fairly hums with life around her. She can hear a mouse squeaking in the underbrush several yards away, can smell a rabbit hiding in the brambles, can smell … oh …
A strange scent gives her pause, and she freezes midstep, dark paw held delicately above the snow. The new scent is thick and musky, and there’s something about it that seems strangely familiar …
It takes her a moment to place it, but after a moment she figures it out. It’s the wolf - the wolf from the kingdom meeting!
Interest peaked, she works her way through the bushes, slipping through spaces in the underbrush until she comes upon a clearing in the trees. There stands the vibrantly coloured mare from the meeting, the one that had shifted from a wolf.
She stops for a moment, just staring. She’s loathe to initiate a meeting, but this mare is another shifter, perhaps she could teach her something. She steps out of the foliage, hesitates for a moment, then shifts.
Up she sprouts, until the little red fox is replaced by a slightly wild looking young mare. She eyes the green and blue stranger uneasily for a moment, wings tucked protectively at her sides, until finally one word slips from her mouth. “Terra.” She’s really far better at this conversation thing with her own family.
The days were getting shorter and once again the cold had set in to the Taiga. The magician always seemed to be lurking, and yet it was that this green girl—Circinae—was one she had not met.
Odd, that.
Still, the Alpha had told them that if she sought askance of her, they need only ask. Well, this was her making her promise.
Her daughter Terra is the first to break the clearing, and stops to give her own name. Reagan approaches her first, immediately going to her side with an affectionate nuzzle. A child after her own heart—wild, and capable of anything. Adopted or not, this one was definitely the one after he mother’s irish spirit. She would continue on here in the forest, long after Reagan’s days had ended.
Reagan then turns her focus to Circi, with wide eyes and a hesitant look.
“Hello, Circinae. How are you on this blustery afternoon?”
OOC: sorry so short. Drinking wine and just trying to catch up on posts.
Had it not been for slight of movement, Circinae would’ve missed the curious little fox. She’s too intent on reining in her emotions and quieting her mind that when Terra begins her shift, the green-and-navy girl only catches the end. Had she hands, she might have clapped. Instead, she only allows for a grin to wisp quickly over her face, the beginnings of “Oh! A Fox shif-” spilling from her pleased lips before the words, and the grin, die out casually with the appearance of Reagan.
It’s not that she fears her (though, unbidden, the sensation of Ruan’s lips against her skin … the smell of his lingering breath in the tepid, charged air between them … the animosity and instinct in his gaze shoots through her mind) more so that she understands her place here is not yet cemented. She is, currently, an outsider trying desperately to wedge her toes into the nooks and crannies of this cliff she calls home. Circy is also starkly aware that with one blink from the grey mare, she could cease to exist.
So many uncertainties. “And you thought yourself able to withstand this.” She admonishes herself inwardly, dipping her head in respect to the two of them as they intertwine with casual familiarity. “Thank you, firstly, for coming.” She says instead, “I’m well and hopefully you are too. I have a … request for you.” She hedges, tail twitching to flick out and tap her sides with nervousness. She had no right, she knows, but Reagan holds the key to unlocking a mystery she has never been able to solve.
“I have two gifts … not just wolf shifting. But I’ve never known what my second was, only that it was present. I was wondering if you could, well, reveal to me what it was?” Her body quivers, softly, with the memory of what it was like; allowing another to probe her again. How much would Reagan see? How much would Circinae be able to hide? “Idiot girl.” She thinks, knowing full and well that her Queen was no paltry telepath. In a shy attempt to re-direct attention away from her, those blue eyes dance to where Terra watches them both.
“Circy.” She echoes, tongue gliding over her parched lips. “At your service.”
Circinae
I need the crack of a whip, I need some blood in the cut
The mare seems ecstatic at the sight of her changing from fox to horse, and Terra is momentarily taken aback. She’d been so absorbed in the thought of meeting and perhaps learning from the wolf-shifter, that she hadn’t paused to consider what the mare would think of meeting her.
Luckily she’s saved from having to fumble for words by the timely appearance of her mother. Reagan slips in beside her, and Terra thankfully returns the mare’s affectionate nuzzle. What impeccable timing.
Reagan greets the mare, calling her Circinae, and Terra’s brown eyes move to rest thoughtfully on the mare’s face. She’s not good with reading expressions, but there’s something off about the Circinae’s face. She seems … nervous, almost. Strange.
She’s so utterly oblivious as to how intimidating her magical mother can seem.
Circinae stumbles over her words, asking if Reagan can determine what her other ability might be. Terra isn’t terribly interested in those however. Other abilities are fun, sure (she loves her own strange wings after all), but what she’s interested in, what she hungers after, are the shapes, the other forms. The wolf.
She takes a step forward as the mare turns back to her, her own eyes fastened on the green face and blue eyes. “Circy.” She’s usually not so forward with those she does not know but …
“Could you teach me? The wolf shape?” She wants to learn and perfect as many as she can.
Reagan is no fool. She can smell Ruan’s scent on her. Circinae. It would not require a paltry telepath to see the uncertainty she puts forth in her voice at when she speaks to Reagan. Or to use her nose to smell her husband’s fragrance on the emerald girl’s skin. However, she puts that away—as she always does, these days—and clears her expression, brightening at Terra, directing her voice to her daughter first.
Family always comes first. Circinae, as far as Reagan is concerned, is not family yet. How far would the young wolf be willing to go to receive the grey mare’s trust? That much was yet to be determined. Her eyes move toward Terra away from Circy with a knowing look, but she will say nothing. Her problems with her marriage have nothing to do with the wolf shifter, and that is very likely something that Circinae is well aware of.
“It is best that you learn your shifting from those who do it best, dear one. Be mindful of your movements. Always be in harmony with your body and your surroundings. Even if it means using different parts from different animal souls for one occasion. Just follow your heart.”
And while Terra is attempting to shift into a wolf—or whatever form suited her best—Reagan addresses the green girl, her eyes serious, trained and focused. “Your abilities come from your affinity to the water. Having the ability to use that substance to your will… as a means of transportation. A waterfall here, will lead you to Ischia, and back again, if you so chose.”
And with that, Reagan transforms herself into the iconic white wolf that has inhabited these woods for years. Her scent is on these trees, and they bend to her will. Always the Alpha, but never a Queen. “Is there more you requested to know? Or would you like to go on a hunt, once Terra has learned your form. As you will find, she is a quick study. And I long for the taste of blood.”
“Water … as a means of transporation?” She ponders, struggling to try and make sense of what Reagan was telling her. Riddles were never her strong suit, but this doesn’t seem like a riddle. Only an answer that Circinae has yet to fully understand. The off-colored mare accepts that she’ll need patience, time, and perhaps another visit to the mountain before she can turn her leader’s words into something tangible. But the shifter has never been one to shy from a challenge, so she smiles with satisfaction and tips an ear to listen as the grey answers her daughter’s question. “Learn from those who do it best?” She echoes inwardly, the slender, grey wolf of her childhood ravaging her memories for a brief moment. The thought scares her.
She eases forward while Reagan shifts, head tilting softly as she sees the white wolf for the first time. Her eyes dart back to where Terra waits, body stilling as she contemplates what she is about to tell the girl. The moment passes and she opens her mouth to spill, “I can show you what it looks like, but for you to know it, you’d have to understand the way the shape fits. Over bone, with sinew, muscle and fat in all of the appropriate places. This, I cannot teach you.” the words fall heavily. A devious smile rounds her mouth, one eye narrowing as she considers the girl again.
“But I know someone who can.” She offers, turning away to nod once in affirmation of the hunt. Yes … slipping skins sounded especially wonderful right now. “His name is Wyrm, rumor has it he wanders the forest.” She muses, shoulders rolling with the casual vagueness of it all. It had been decades since she’d even uttered that name out loud and it still gave her chills. Her tail, once thick and midnight blue, shortens and fades to brown. Her head turns, curves at the neck to peer back at Terra, before she finishes with, “Tell him that you know me and he may decide not to try and kill you.”
That’s all she can give her, all she wants to give her while the pale she-wolf waits nearby. Her head turns northward again and then she’s wolf herself; slender, taupe, and eager for the hunt. Her shoulders hunch, tail sweeping low over the earth before she launches ahead, giving in to the needs of animal and instinct.
Circinae
I need the crack of a whip, I need some blood in the cut
If Terra had been a more social creature, had been better versed at the intricacies of conversation and other forms of communication, she might have sensed the tension humming between Circy and her mother. She wouldn’t have understood it of course, if she had - she does not know the histories or inner thoughts of either mare - but as it is, she is completely oblivious to the undercurrents that slip beneath the words.
She is aware, of course, of the surface, and of Reagan’s recommendation, to which she nods happily in agreement. It’s part of the reason why she’d approached Circy to begin with - Reagan is magical, incredible, but Circy is a fellow shifter, and clearly a master of the wolf form.
Reagan turns to Circy then, finally answering the mare’s question, and while Terra’s patience threatens to run amok (she wants to learn!), she waits quietly until Circy’s attention finally returns. Her head cocks to the side as Circy explains that she might not be the best choice, as she does not know some of the finer details of the form. But her head perks when Circy reveals that she knows someone who could teach her even more. “Wyrm.” She itches to turn tail and head in the direction of the forest immediately, but first Reagan, then Circy herself shift into wolves, and she’s instantly pulled to their forms.
Hungry eyes pause on the long, pointed snout, the alert ears, the powerful legs, and the thick, bushy coat. She studies the both of them intently for a few moments, before Circy launches ahead, trying to imprint the shape and the details in her mind. And then she too, shifts.
The resulting creature is close, but not perfect. The fox, the hawk and squirrel had come more easily to her - she’d interacted with those creatures in person in her early days living in the forest. But she’s never seen a real wolf, not face to face. But with the examples in front of her, and with her own knowledge of the fox canid form, she creates a decent approximation.
She looks at Reagan, mouth open in a wolfish grin, then uses her powerful haunches to canon after Circy. Let the hunt begin!
