i need that fire; wolfbane

[alaska]

I feel it running through my veins. I need that fire just to know that I'm awake.

She does not remember being born, although she reasons that it is not that unreasonable.

Not that strange to think that she would not remember such a thing.

But she also does not remember the moments after—the cleaning, the eating, the love that she is certain in the way of youthful confidence must have exists. She does not remember anything except for the tides that pulled underneath her skin. The oceans that washed against the shores of her heart and the way that she knew, somehow, that the world was spinning around her and she only need reach out and take it.

She does not remember sleeping or waking.

Does not remember the first time that she felt her very bones snap apart and come together.

The first thing she remembers, instead, is flying.

She had seen a bird flying around her head and she had breathed herself into existence. Her gangly legs and tiny nose twitched and she felt the way her body began to morph and shift. It grew smaller and then the hair began to change—becoming beautiful plumes instead. Her head elongated and then grow shorter, the end of it becoming hooked and hardened into a beak she had only seen once before.

It was as easy and natural as breathing the first time had been—

and as impossible to stop.

Alaska has no concept that perhaps her mother would not like to wake and find her daughter gone but her heart was not made for such worries. Instead, she takes to the skies—a tiny blur of red and gold and ivory as she chases a thing that no longer exists. Her wings flap valiantly against the churning air and she tires.

She feels her body begin to protest and she dives.

As she does, nearing the ground, she snaps back into the form she knows best.

And comes tumbling head over legs as the same shiny filly she had been minutes before.

— Alaska —

@[Wolfbane]

[Wolfbane]

Wolfbane could understand the concept of not feeling tethered to any one thing, shape, or feeling. He may not have been born with the inherent gifts available to him now, but shape-shifting (skin-walking, his sire had called it) was always in his blood. Wanderlust too. When he’s not bound to earthly things or Beqanna politics, the renowned champion fondly took to the skies or slipped into the water for a quick escape. He had been born with invisibility, but being able to truly integrate into one’s surroundings - to become part of the scenery instead of just trying to blend with it - was what led him to completely forget about the normalcy of being a horse for the better part of six months.

He would’ve explained this to anyone who was willing to listen; Vulgaris and Leliana had been receptive to the idea. Lepis… not so much. Not anymore, really. Lilliana never questioned him, though maybe she should start.

It wasn’t like Wolfbane just decided to ‘forget’ about his less-animalistic counterparts, it was more of a gradual cessation of thought altogether. The less he thought and the more he felt like whatever skin he was wearing, the more realistic a picture he painted. These gifts… this stolen magic and the curse that came with it - they were his life now, first and foremost.

Funny, then, that the girl he ends up saving could’ve just as easily been his next meal.

The golden eagle skin he’s become accustomed to wearing around Taiga is the first thing to rise above the gently swaying treetops when Alaska flitters by. A massive raptor, rising up from a high-built nest and hovering momentarily over the snow-frosted evergreen canopy, stretching its wings and narrowing its focus on the tasty morsel escaping. He gave chase, reveling in the expertise of being a fully-functional pilot, of having both the wingspan and the body type for great bursts of speed. The golden-brown eagle streamlined and began to close the gap, hesitating before taking that final, deadly dive because something about the little bird does not seem exactly … correct.

The coloring? Maybe. He noticed the way she began to tire only seconds before her fall and, pulling up short with a few hefty gusts from his wings, Bane looked down to where she tumbled haphazardly into the shadowy forest below. Not meat, his bird-brain understood as he plummeted after her, screeching a distress signal from pure exasperation. Faster, he thought, he must go faster so he pumps his shoulders until the burning ache of invisible fire screamed in his joints.

In the final moments he didn’t look at where Alaska was predestined to fall; Wolfbane only pulled a half-assed shift from the assortment of animals that first jumped to mind and then he changed course quickly, turning belly-up and opening two wide, golden-haired forelimbs like a ready hug to embrace the filly when she landed squarely upon his chest with a heavy thump. “Ooph!” The half-shifted creature grunted, wrapping sturdy paws over her shoulders and little ribs while he turned himself right-side up and banked to a hard stop.

Still flapping, the gust of wind from his now impressively long wingspan disturbed the resting ferns dotting the dank forest floor as he gingerly touched down, filly-in-grasp. His hind legs were cloven-hooved and his tail a long cord with a tuft, the top half of Bane gone all Lion (complete with a robustly yellow mane) and a strange set of eagle’s wings jutting out from between his shoulders. He’d gone purely chimerac, cradling the small girl as if she were made from glass, but he looked down at her with knowing eyes and a warm, toothy expression.

“Hello there youngling,” He cooed as gently as he could manage through rows of pointed teeth, “you gave me a good scare. Are you alright?”

@[alaska] yes henlo you get the novel; let me know if I need to change anything!

[alaska]

I feel it running through my veins. I need that fire just to know that I'm awake.

The fall happens so quickly that she almost does not register it at all.

Let alone register that an animal who had been hunting her unknowingly then became the one to save her. But her heart has never been one to be afraid of such things and although she could just have easily been lying there with shattered legs, she is instead wrapped in the grasp of some monstrous creature instead. Her golden eyes widen with surprise and then delight and her equine body gives a small wiggle.

Before she can register it all, she finds herself shifting into another animal that she had spotted back when she was still with her mother. It ripples throughout her and she shrinks down quickly until her badger-marked face becomes a mask instead, her beady eyes still glowing with the same light of mischievousness  that had warmed them when she had been in her equine form. She twitches her nose and her tail flicks behind her. She escapes his pawed grasp to crawl her way up his maned chest until she reaches his face.

Curious, she lifts small raccoon paws to his cheeks and then peers down until her button nose touches his large feline one, sniffing him. After a moment of studious concentration, her claws digging slightly into the thick fur of him, she squeaks with delight. “You must know how to shift too!” her voice is distinctly feminine, all lace and bells, belying the tough exterior and adventurous streak a mile wide in her.

“I’m fine,” she says as an afterthought as she pushes his lip up a little so she can get a better look at his pointed fangs. “Your teeth are massive! Have you always been able to do this?”

She pulls her own teeth back to reveal rows of her tiny pointed incisors.

“Mine are small right now but I bet I could make ‘em huge!"

— Alaska —

@[Wolfbane]

[Wolfbane]

WOLFBANE

In the dinge of the winter woods one wouldn’t expect to find such creatures like Wolfbane and Alaska, meeting each other under fortuitous circumstances disguised as near-death-experiences. Yet here they are marveling at fate and the sight of one another, Alaska’s brilliant golden eyes holding Bane’s attention as she wriggled free. He didn’t move to stop her, only hunkered into an awkward sitting position to watch her little body shift again, interested beyond measure at the easy, nearly thoughtless way she slipped skins. At best he could work in two or three complete changes before exhausting himself and he does very little to hide the obvious: Wolfbane is enraptured by the girl, completely taken with her.

“I know a thing or two about it, yea.” He breathed over her pointed face and whiskers, predator eyes closing as she pushed her needle-nailed claws into his cheeks and explored the cavernous trap of his open mouth. “Gno, gnot ahlways,” The lion-headed stallion garbled with his tongue pressed to the roof of mouth, forming words without the use of his lips which were currently occupied by one studious, furry raccoon. “I et oou could ee oar heroucious dan ee.”

He pulled gently away, closed his mouth and wet his lips again. “I bet you could be more ferocious than me.” The rogue male chuckled through the rumble of his purring, vibrating chest. The wings over his back shuffled and pulled tighter to one another, dampened by the fog and cold. He stood and loomed over the snarling ‘coon (filly) and then hunkered down into the cover of ferns, lifting his backside to wiggle it playfully. “A little bird-bandit in my forest…” He pounced over her, landing and twisting around to face her again, lowering himself once more. Both his eyes had widened and his pupils expanded; his claws scratched the damp soil and his shoulders quivered in excitement. “Is that what I should call you, then? Little bird-bandit?”

Commandant of Taiga // Champion of Loess

@[Alaska]

[alaska]

I feel it running through my veins. I need that fire just to know that I'm awake.

He is big and warm and scary all at once and Alaska quickly decides that is her favorite combination. Not that she minds the scary part—even when his massive teeth are nearly bigger than her grabby hands. It hasn’t sunk in just yet that there are things that can be scary and do damage and her heart only thumps with the want of adventure, not the fear of attaining it. So she just brightens when he pulls way, when he is able to articulate the words that she had prohibited. “Oh, I am going to be the most ferocious one day!”

She trembles all over, feeling the pleasure of the idea run down her spine.

“I’m going to be the most ferocious thing anyone—everyone—has ever seen!”

She smiles a toothy smile up at him, tumbling down as she scoots away but righting herself quickly. He goes quickly into playful position and she does the same, her body lengthening into a more cat-like form but keeping the same coloring—the same mask, the same tail, the same distinctly raccoon features. Her tail twitches behind her and she giggles as he pounces over her, rolling and batting her paws.

“I haven’t stolen anything!” she cries out as she rolls, righting herself with her bright eyes and then pulling lips back over youthful teeth. “Yet,” she amends with a little yapping sound, leaping forward and reaching out to thump her deft hands at whatever piece of him she could reach.

Laughing at her own joke, her own promise, she lands and then scrunches up, preparing for play.

“You can call me Alaska,” she says with a grin, naming herself in the moment.

“It sounds nice, don’t you think?”

— Alaska —

[Wolfbane]

As small as their world seems now, Wolfbane’s still aware of what lurks outside these borders. He knows - more than some - what’s beyond the great oceans and horizon out there. Many a scary thing and Alaska, claiming herself to someday be the most ferocious of them all, might be closer to the truth than she realizes. From above he watches her mold herself to a childish fantasy, literally sculpting that which she desires and manifesting it into a physical form without a care in the world and Wolfbane - oh Wolfbane shivers too just thinking about her untapped potential.

She doesn’t falter on newly-made paws, though Bane jerks back to try and evade the swipe at his nose. Her scrabbly paws rake across his chest gently enough but it earns her a wrinkled snarl, followed by a rumbling tone that doesn’t match the animalistic excitement practically glowing from behind his wide eyes. Steal? From him? My my, what a bold little thing to have landed right in his arms. “I can, can I?” He grins, folding in on himself and letting the wings cover what shape he’s falling into. “I think Alaska is as good as any other name,” Bane replies, spreading them open again to reveal a gray-colored falcon half covered by shriveled ferns.

“but not as good as the name Wolfbane.” He screeches, hopping into the air deftly. “That’s what you can call me.” The drake seems to grin, flapping above her but reaching out with its claws to grasp tenderly at her masked forehead.

“What are you doing here then, if you’re not stealing from me?” He wonders, peckish and not at all in a rush to return to guard duty. No… the border and its passerby’s could wait for a moment. Bane had found something much more to his liking.

@[alaska] she's too adorable

[alaska]

If am lost, I am lost on purpose.

Alaska had not left her mother on purpose, does not know such cruelty yet, but she cannot find it in her to be sorry that she has wandered off—not when she had found someone who has control of the same very power that has been buried in her all along. She still does not understand it. She does not have a name for the thing that beats too hard in her chest and drives her to go further and further with each and every shift, but she knows that it will be a driving force for her entire life. She knows she will be obsessed with it.

So watching him mirror her with an ever greater prowess, and even greater bank of knowledge, can only delight her—can only cause her to shiver with excitement, with the want to know more, be more.

He shifts again and her eyes widen with delight as he takes to the skies.

“Wolfbane!” she cries out, loving the name immediately. “Wooooolfbane,” she repeats it again, dragging out the syllables and then cackling to herself, rolling on her back and throwing her paws at nothing in particular in the air. She continues to laugh as he flaps above her, giggling even as he reaches for her face and she just scrunches up her nose in response. “I’ll call you that but I still think Alaska is better.”

Rolling over again, she shifts back into her filly form, feeling that familiar exhaustion tugging at the back of her mind when she has exerted her shifting too much. Combined with the flight and the multiple shifts, it’s more than she’s done so far, but she’s not the type to admit to it. Instead she jigs in place, lifting her white and gold nose toward him, as if she could reach the sky even without the wings to do it.

“I have no idea what I’m doing half the time,” she admits with a smile to his question about what she is doing here, and it’s the truth. She has no grand plan guiding her. “But I usually figure it out eventually.”

Alaska