"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
He turns his nose into the cool wind that brings with it the scent of imminent winter. With the warmer days behind them, most of Beqanna retreats and tucks away into their respective homes until spring finds them once again. Barrow himself thinks about turning towards Tephra and its billowing, volcanic landmark on the horizon. He should go home, should stop in and see his mother (lest she worry away all the red from her hair), but he wants to check in somewhere first. He wants to check in on someone first, that is.
It has been a few months since he last saw his friend by the riverside.
The young stallion had made her an ice tree – a rather unimpressive one, but a tree nonetheless – and he is keen to show her how much his skill has improved since then. She told him that she called Hyaline home. All that he knows about the place is that it is comprised of a lake ringed by forests and mountains. Cooler than Tephra at least, he imagines, already picturing the snow-capped peaks he intends to see for himself. He imagines, too, how much he could build and sculpt with snow and ice already on the ground, ripe for the taking! As excited he is to see snow in its natural form in one of their kingdoms, Barrow is far more excited to visit Mazikeen.
It takes quite a while to reach the kingdom, but he does not mind the long journey. There is much to see and catalogue away in his brain while he goes. He knows his grandfather could have pointed out and named every creature and bit of foliage he came across, but he can only marvel at it all himself. Perhaps he should have paid better attention to his mother’s lessons instead of conjuring snow in his youth.
When the ground finally begins to slope upwards into the smaller foothills just outside of Hyaline, Barrow breathes a sigh of relief. So this is it. What a beauty, he muses, staring up at the craggy faces of the mountains. He lifts one hoof over the invisible border and puts it back down. But he notices, with growing alarm, that his hoof has become a paw! The red roan leaps forward and finds himself falling down instead. Or not falling down, exactly, but sinking into a shorter frame. Completely bewildered, the now fully shifted Bernese Mountain dog high tails it through the forest.
His nose – his NOSE smells EVERYTHING! As Barrow races in a panic through trees he does not recognize, his overlarge paws spring him over both leaf litter and logs. He follows only the faintest scent of the mare he knows, a scent that grows stronger and stronger the further into the kingdom he goes. While the smell grows stronger, his panic wanes. The shaggy, furry beast is so HAPPY to be running full-tilt. He doesn’t care where he is going as long as there are smells to be smelled. And oh, there are plenty! Barrow feels his tail start shaking to and fro behind him. He is having so much fun that he forgets where he is heading and why. He zigs and zags through the woods without a care in the world, chasing the next scent that his nose finds.
Mazikeen was so angry about losing in the alliance she had been blinded with it and lost track of time. She had spent who knows how long in the shape of what would have been a sleek white mountain lion if she hadn’t been so mad her fur was bristling and making it look like she had just been electrocuted by lightning. She chose that form specifically to make sure no one came over to bother her as she stalked the common lands and delayed the inevitable - going home to Hyaline empty handed.
She was going to have to hunt that blue pegasus down soon. She hated this feeling, guilt and shame so thick they choked her. Maybe she should have stuck around to see who won the final round - she hopes that the blue one does, hopes she lost to someone who goes undefeated so that it’s at least slightly not her fault.
But she cannot avoid going home forever, cannot avoid giving Breach the bad news. So Mazikeen-the-lion slinks home. She’s tiptoeing the line between angry and sad when her lion’s nose picks up a familiar scent. Immediately her mood brightens - her anguish and self-loathing forgotten as she shifts into a wolf and pads after the trail with a bounce in her step. She sees an unfamiliar shape, not the chestnut roan she had been expecting, but the scent is unmistakable.
Is Barrow… a shifter?
The idea brings forth a delighted laugh and as Mazikeen picks up the pace she adjusts her wolf-form to something a little softer, closer to the one he is wearing. She doesn’t know the name for it - but it’s close to a great pyrenees. With every bounding step more of her mood lightens and she happily casts aside everything that had been bogging her down, at least for this moment. “Barrow! Is that you?!” She barks out the question with laughter as she watches him follow his nose, chasing the trails she can pick up - trails she’d be interested in if her orange eyes weren’t dancing with delight at the sight of her friend.
His nose is practically in the dirt as he tries to sort through all the smells that are assaulting him all at once.
There’s a bunny! Or wait, there was a bunny that passed through not too long ago, leaving behind an irresistible scent trail for him to follow. But wait! There’s a….is that a chipmunk? Or a squirrel? Something is rustling in the carpet of fallen leaves just ahead. The tri-colored dog tail stills from its frenzied wagging. He focuses intently on that movement, on that sound that makes. Him. Want. To.
RUN!
Barrow leaps forward without grace, his paws outstretched to catch his quarry or himself or both when he hits the ground again. His ears a pricked at attention. He anticipates the squeak that will follow and make him the happiest guy in the world. He can imagine his soft mouth closing gently around his target, can feel the victory of his captured prey squirming in his mouth before he releases it to live another day and wait for his next game of fetch.
But then, nearly too late, he sees what he thought had been an acceptable partner in his game of catch and release is instead marked with a warning of white and black. The skunk waddles out from its pile of leaves with an air of disinterest. It knows the mass of black, tan, and white hurtling at it is defenseless against its secret weapon. It turns around and lifts its tail just as Barrow-the-dog crunches the leaf-litter under his paws.
The spray arcs out and descends like so much acid rain. Fortunately, Barrow dives to the side and avoids the worst of it. A bit hits the end of his waving banner-of-a-tail and the scent is terrible. His twitching nose is no longer a blessing but a horrible, monstrous burden. He’s about to start rolling on the ground to rid himself of the putrid perfume, when he hears his name ringing through the trees.
“Maze?” He cocks his head in question, just as another wave of stench rolls over him. He sees the skunk considering a second blast as it waddles in their direction. “Go, save yourself!” And with a happy grin, he bounds off, wondering if she will follow him or if she will let him be the decoy.
Mazikeen’s nose is twitching with all the scents that she’s sure are probably driving Barrow crazy, especially as a new shifter. He must be a new one - this would have come up before - right? Her tongue lolls out of her mouth in a good humour just as she catches the familiar scent of a skunk pre-spray and opens her mouth to warn Barrow. But then her open mouth inhales some of the noxious gas and she gags. Her black nose crinkles in distaste and it feels like her nostrils are burning but the smile that is lighting up her orange eyes cannot be shaked now. Not even by a skunk.
Poor Barrow. He calls out for her to save herself and Mazikeen’s laughter rises up in bright bursts. She’ll leave no one behind. With a fluid movement she shifts into an osprey, circling up and then back over to Barrow. She swoops down but is once again met by the stench radiating off of him and it discourages her from making contact. So she flaps her wings and stays a few metres above him - calling out
“Follow me Barrow! To the lake!”
And then she turns and heads in that direction. The water might be chilly with winter just around the corner but it was going to be better than stinking up the place. And the skunk is not likely to follow them that far.
He catches a glimpse of the white, furry, other canine before he is turning to draw the Intolerable-Stink-squirrel away. Barrow tries to be the chivalrous knight and sacrifice himself, but Mazikeen somehow thinks it is all just a big joke. His poor tail would beg to differ! The sound of her laughter warms him though, and he thinks he would suffer a thousand noxious fumigations just to hear it again.
He bounds off, but he realizes he doesn’t know where he is going. Or where he should go. Where might one go to escape a vicious, predatory, noseless (the skunk must be, he thinks, else it would knock itself out on its own stench) beast hell-bent on destruction? “To the lake!” Mazikeen yells like she has done this before and knows how to remedy this exact situation. It makes Barrow wonder why anyone would willingly choose to keep coming back to Hyaline or think it is a suitable place to lay one’s head at night. Ah, nothing like the fresh scent of rot and decay. Pairs nicely with flowering wisteria, he supposes.
He glances back over his shoulder and sees that Maze has shifted into an osprey. His eyes follow her spiraling movement before she levels off. They move through the forest, dog tracking bird, on a quest to heal the gallant knight of his mortal wounds. Barrow wags his tail unconsciously, no matter what obstacle lies in the path ahead of him. This body is more fluid than his equine form, he finds, more supple. Every log strewn across the way is leapt over effortlessly. Every thorny-bushed blockade eventually clears as he finds a way through nimbly. And always, his tail wags behind him.
Eventually, the trees clear and the land slopes down to the lake below. It sparkles invitingly despite winter’s slow chill creeping up on them. Plus, Barrow is quite immune to the cold. He cranes his neck up at Mazikeen cutting through the air above him, a mischievous glimmer in his gaze. “Last one in is as rotten as a skunk!” And he bounds forward without thought into the once-still water, splashing and churning the crystalline surface with his big paws. He wonders what she’ll have in her arsenal of shapes to contend with the water. He wonders, too, if the smell will wash off or if he’ll stink forevermore.
They leave their foe behind them, ready to stink another day, but this day has already done such wonders for Mazikeen’s mood. The bitterness is still there, but it’s shrunk to a pit in her stomach and as she swerves and soars through trees and across the grass to the lake with Barrow following her - she feels so light. The weight of everything falls away a little more with each beat of her wings. He calls up to her as they come to the shore. Without hesitation she angles and dives into the water the same time as he bounds into it - wings flared to catch her and she makes a bigger splash than necessary.
It’s only a heartbeat where she disappears beneath the surface. With her body spread she floats back up as a wet, bedraggled skunk - bright orange eyes laughing out of a dark face before she shifts again and she’s back to being the white dog she had been moments ago.
She splashes around a little before standing where the water comes up to her canine shoulder and she moves slightly with current as it rolls in and out, but she’s not paying attention to that any more than the chill of the water. She’s getting her first good look at Barrow-the-dog and it feels as though she cannot shake the smile on her face for anything. “I think that was the same skunk I pissed off when we first moved here. The stink will wear off soon.” That had been one of her mistakes when she had first explored around, and it was a lesson she occasionally tested - just to see how close she could get and in what form. So far, though, she hadn’t managed to resist the temptation of trying to tug on the skunk’s striped tail and escape without a hint of stink.
“Have you been able to shapeshift this whole time??” She knows that can’t be the case, knows this must be new, and the tone of her voice is teasing.
She splashes down in front of him and he is sprayed again, though this time by water rather than stink – a much more suitable solvent. Through beaded droplets on his eyelashes, he sees her rise from the shallows as the dreaded beast they had only just battled and defeated. Her eyes are playful though, and he knows he has little and less to fear from this version of their enemy. Besides, she doesn’t stay in the shape for very long. In another moment, she shifts into the white-furred canine she had been before.
The transformation elicits a renewed spark of joy in his own borrowed body. He feels himself waggling in the water from head to tail, creating little swirls and eddies around his limbs. Maze tells him the stink is temporary, but even that trouble seems infinitesimally small to him now. Life has always been easy to Barrow and smiles have always come readily, but there is something about being a dog that makes even his sunny past pale in comparison to now. All he can even think about is now, he finds. Everything else is insignificant. All that matters is what is in front of his gentle eyes.
And right now that is his very best friend.
“No!” He barks out emphatically, shaking the thick scruff around his neck at the same time and hopefully sending a few retaliatory drops in his companion’s direction. Barrow grins at her before tilting his head and really considering her question. “I mean, I don’t think so. I did have a rather strange and vivid dream a couple of months ago…perhaps it was less of a dream than a quest.” Their world is fantastical, after all; it wouldn’t surprise him to learn what he had experienced was more real than surreal. If all he came out of it with is his newfound ability to become a canine and no permanent mental or physical trauma, then he knows he is truly fortunate indeed. Oh, the horrors he’s heard about other thrill-seekers who did not fare as well after their adventure ended.
“What about you though, and your own test of mettle? How did the Alliance go? All that fighting and sweating and bleeding…” He shakes his head again in somewhat mock unease. The idea of it is wholly unappealing to him, but he knows the same cannot be said for Maze. She looks well enough, but he wonders if there is more than meets the eye. She seems happy enough, too, and he has no reason to believe it could have been anything other than a spectacular experience for the feisty young mare. He’s even smiling as he steps forward to eye her new marking with a curious glean to his expressive, tri-colored face.
This happiness is so blissful it takes over Mazikeen with utter ease as she stands in the lake. She laughs when he shakes, sending droplets her way, and her own tail wags with delight through the water. His explanation about where the shifting had come from seems plausible enough - she had never been on a quest herself but her mother had found herself caught up in a few. Whatever he had been through, whether it was a dream or a quest, the shape he was given suits her friend so well.
And just moments after she had been sure the smile blazing in her orange eyes could not be shaken - it disappears at the mention of the Alliance, her heart dropping like a weight to the bottom of the lake. She’d forgotten that anger in an instant upon seeing Barrow - let the joy of seeing her oldest friend as a shifter take hold of her and numb her to everything else she had been feeling the last few days. Mazikeen hates that she lost, hates that she feels weak and dumb because of it. In her more lucid moments as a pissed-off lion she had replayed the battle in her mind over and over, wondering what she could have done differently.
She should have torn Gale apart.
“I lost in the third round.” She finally says after an extended period of silence, her voice hollow and bitter. There’s an attempt at a smile, though it’s pale in comparison to the boisterous laughter she had shared moments ago. It’s hard to lose herself to despair when faced with the sweet face in front of her but she does manage. “I plan on finding the jerk I lost to and beating him up though, just to prove I can.”
Even with the cool promise of autumn coming in fast with its frosted grass and kaleidoscope-colored trees, Barrow has never felt warmer. Despite the water that the two dogs stand in that should be frigid and intolerable, he’s never felt more comfortable. He lives for happiness and laughter, and to spark it in the white and black woman in front of him is an added bonus. He thinks he could stay here all day splashing in the mountain lake and making memories with his favorite friend. Instead, he inadvertently touches on the one subject he should have avoided at all cost.
He even steps forward, foolishly, in order to be a better listener to whatever tale she will spin.
His smile falters with her’s. The moment she spirals down into her thoughts, he is right there beside her, wishing he could take it all back. What a fool! He chides himself over and over in his mind. Because he should have known that she hadn’t won. He should have known that a victor would have little time for gallivanting around in a lake with a nobody like him. A victor would have far more important things to do. Her name would have been heralded throughout the lands, or at least whispered from one ear to the other in awe.
She hadn’t won and he had reminded her of it.
“Maze, I’m sorry,” he says, hanging his head and letting his tail and triangular ears fall flat. Barrow misses the smile she attempts and only looks up when she promises to beat up her opponent. “You are the toughest person I know.” There is a heavy weight to his blue eyes that speaks of resolute honesty; he wants to make the heaviness in her own eyes go away though, he feels it is his responsibility.
With a weak smile that soon grows stronger, he induces a little happiness for himself and sends the majority of it Mazikeen’s way. It emboldens him, sends a pleasant tingle along his spine so that he reaches forward and licks the other dog’s cheek encouragingly. He draws back and adds, “I will be glad to follow you and bite his ankles, if you want me to.”
The pity party she’s throwing for herself eases a little as she watches how her change in mood affects Barrow - almost comically exaggerated by the form he is in, she’s sure. It’s so expressive and she hates herself for having caused his smile to slip. The appreciative smile for his sympathy and his affirmation that she is the toughest person he knows helps and she offers a smile that, for a moment, is only a ghost of how bright it is normally.
And then her mood changes. That disappointment and anger is pushed aside forcibly in favour of a sweet feeling of joy.
She doesn’t understand the surge of happiness that fills her up, making it feel like she could float clear across the lake, but she assumes it has something to do with Barrow being here - his easy friendship. Having never had anyone magically influence her emotions before, she does not suspect that it may be happening now. It just seems right that she should suddenly feel happy again.
Mazikeen laughs when an easy delight when he licks her cheek and she raises a water-laden paw to shove at him playfully when he draws back. His offer brings out another laugh and her orange eyes dance a little when she replies - imagining a pack of dogs hunting down her last opponent. “Thanks, I’ll definitely keep you posted.”
There’s a small sigh, and though it is still touched with a little of her melancholy it’s easier for her to handle now. Not so consuming. “I know I should be proud that I made it as far as I did, but it still sucks - you know?”
It’s easy to shrug off these feelings now, though, and she offers a brighter smile to Barrow. “Come on, let’s get dry. You don’t stink as bad anymore.” Her white tail wags a little behind her and she moves to the beach before shaking theatrically.
And then, because she’s eager to talk about anything else - she asks “Are you living anywhere in particular now?”
