lost and can't be found, any

[advent]

I spent a lot of nights on the run
And I think oh, I'm lost and can't be found

The ghosts had told her. (She confuses them for ghosts, when they are only souls.)
The ghosts, her only constant companion, curled sweetly against each shoulder.
They had told her of a land of shifters, someplace she would belong.

(Her father is there, too. But she does not know this because the souls do not know this.)

She is a solitary thing, Advent. But it is not by choice.
She is a strange thing, too, and this is why she is solitary.

Because she has always preferred the company of her ghosts. They are kind to her in ways that no one else has ever been. They are fond of her in ways that no one else has ever been. And she fond of them. So dreadfully fond of them.

She shifts effortlessly. After so long alone, she has had plenty of time to master the skill. And she travels to Hyaline as a panther, sleek and black and long. Such a stark contrast to the equine form, which is white and mottled with pale red panther markings. Still, the ghosts stay close. Glued to her sides as they are, have always been. The only things she has ever love and that have ever loved her.

She arrives in Hyaline still that same sleek black panther. The eyes not a vibrant, feline green but still the same pale red. Her ghosts whisper and and clamor and curl themselves even tighter against her sides.

She sits. And she tilts her feline head and casts a glance around, panting softly. She pushes to her feet the first time someone passes, calls out to them. “Is this the place of shifters?” she asks, pale eyes hopeful. This, the first thing she has ever felt hopeful about.

advent

[breach]

BREACH

She wanders Hyaline as a tigress, as she does most days.

It feels right to be so connected to her mother. To wear her form and to know her so intimately. It feels good to be connected to a shape that does not shift and change the way the rest of her does. Even her equine form does not stay the same, she thinks bitterly. It is the third shape she has worn in so many years. To die twice so young. To be on the brink of adulthood and never worn a body for longer than a year. It gives an eternal taste of of loss on the tongue—something bitter that does not dissolve.

Still, this remains true.

This is the same.

It is only when she hears the soft cry that she turns her young head to the side, her feline eyes sharpening on the other large cat. She notes the black form and draws the only conclusion that she knows.

“You must be a daughter of Atrox,” she says simply. She had heard that the panther soldier had plenty of them, but this was the first time she had met one. He mostly kept to himself these days. After giving her the helm of Hyaline, he had been content to spend his days hunting along the mountains or with the only non-shifter among them—the angel whose faint glow she caught from the air on occasion.

Breach wonders if Advent had come looking for him.

“I’m not sure where he is today, but any shifter is welcome to enter and look.”

There is a brief, mischievous smile that touches the corner of her lips.

“And stay, if they’d like to join the pack."

I want to swim until we both begin to feel the weightlessness sink in

@[advent]

[advent]

I spent a lot of nights on the run
And I think oh, I'm lost and can't be found

Her ghosts hum and sing. A daughter of Atrox, the tigress says, as if there is no question. The name does not feel familiar, but the ghosts delight in it.

Father, they say, your father.

She has never wondered about him. Or her mother, really. She had not come looking for him, but she does not shirk the tigress’s invitation either.

She pushes herself to her feet and moves closer, hesitant. It is not fear that slows her gait but something else. A certain aversion to the company of other living things, perhaps. But the ghosts chatter quietly in her ear as she shakes her dark head and summons up a smile.

“I don’t know Atrox,” she confesses, the name clumsy on her tongue. Cumbersome.

And yet, the tigress extends an even more meaningful invitation. An invitation to join their ranks and she smiles, flashing her sharp, feline teeth. Her heart spasms in her chest and the expression brightens considerably.

“Really?” she asks, as if the tigress had been teasing, playing some cruel joke on the panther. Her ghosts nudge her then, as if to remind her, to teach her, to guide her. “Oh, my name is Advent,” she tells the tigress. “And thank you.”

The first place she has ever been accepted without question, she realizes, and there is some strange giddiness trapped in her throat as she studies the tigress.

advent

@[breach]

[breach]

BREACH

I'd bare you my heart, if I knew that it still was there
I'm too nervous to look, too afraid to close the book

Breach watches her with shrewd eyes—eyes of a young girl who has seen too much, born too much for her few years. She feels the weight of it constantly. The needs to stand against the weight of her mother’s dream pressed upon her back. The pack that grows slowly. The expectations of a kingdom that she intends to run differently than it had been run before. That she intends to unfold slowly with walls built high.

She shifts then, again—a fluid, easy thing.

Perhaps it is kindness or mimicry or perhaps it is a sudden urge to distance herself from the weight of her mother’s presence. Regardless, when she sheds her skin, she emerges as another panther. Sleek and lean, smaller than she had been before. The shape of her eyes are different, but the glint in them remains.

“He most likely doesn’t know you either, if it helps,” there is humor there—something of the girl that she might have been had her life gone a different path. Something less feral, less cruel.

Then a shrug and a smile, something warmer than any non-shifter would find on her border.

She steps back, gesturing to the girl and the souls.

“Welcome to Hyaline and the pack that lives here, Advent.”

Breach flicks her feline tail behind her.

“My name is Breach.”

She doesn’t announce that she’s the Alpha. It should be clear enough.

so take all the wind from my lungs if you're out of air
just deliver me truth, deliver me you

@[advent]