[private] I can feel the paradise before my world implodes

[Malik]

The scent of flowers is heavy in the wind, carried across the vast expanse of water from the distant western islands. Malik stands at the edge of the forest, looking out at the sea that covers what had once been a far-flung kingdom. Beside him, a powerfully-built griffin sits with his feathered leonine tail curled around heavy paws, beaked head nearly level with Malik’ shoulder.

The griffin purrs softly, a contrast to the dark storm that inhabits the thoughts of his companion. The young stallion’s gaze has not shifted from the far-distant shore, but his bicolored eyes are not truly seeing anything. Instead, he is thinking of the future, and of the danger that lies ahead of him. Somewhere over there, wherever Islandres is. That’s where the threat lies.

The skin along his neck is no longer tender where his father had ripped it open, but the hair has not yet fully grown over the scar. It is the only visible mark on his dark body, as the glowing stripes are dimmer than the spring sunshine that illuminates the edge of the woods. Only as clouds pass are they visible on both of the black creatures, and in the shadows the light that emanates from the core of Malik’s broken horn shines all the brighter.

The young stallion scowls, rolling his feathered shoulders, and kicks at the water’s edge with a dark hoof.

@bolder

[bolder]

As Mazikeen drew closer to foaling, Bolder had begun to think about seeking out his cousin, Malik. He wasn’t sure if the Alpha’s oldest son would be feeling restless, or if he perhaps wanted to stay closer to Hyaline. The chestnut pegasus had no worries over his Aunt; she had brought Malik and Viszla into the world just fine. He doesn’t expect anything different for the arrival of his newest cousin, either.

And there was Firion, now.

But where was Malik?

It had been some time since their hunt of the dragon-bird and now that spring was finally thawing out most of Beqanna’s corners, Bolder was in the mood to explore, to gain more knowledge about the Baltians, to fully stretch out his wings; the warmth spreading throughout the land was revitalizing the striped stallion as well. He had spent most of this early spring - as well as most of the winter - keeping warm by visiting Tephra and soaking in its thermal pools along with the occasional trip to Ischia to sunbathe.

There were a few trips to Hyaline, where he would meet with young Visla and speak with his Aunt, but there was no Malik.

That changes on a day when the seabreeze casts a familiar scent. Bolder had been eyeing the landbridge in the distance - all that remained of Loess - and contemplated another journey to Tephra. What he would do there, he wasn’t entirely sure yet, but the winged creature felt the drive to move. He would have to wait, though. The sun was nearly at its peak, and though Bolder was getting more adept at controlling the shadows that churned beneath his skin, he had no desire to put himself in direct sunlight over an ocean that would only reflect more up at him.

What would happen to him?
Would it cast him completely into shadow, or worse, oblivion?

Shaking his moon-marked face, the wanderer moved through the edge of the forest. Bolder had intended to go deeper where the darkness might conceal him better from the sun, but Malik’s scent nearly struck him. Altering his course, the chestnut followed it towards the sea, where he found the dark stallion brooding. His grey eyes glanced up to see the broken horn, and a mark that hadn’t been there the last time they had met. His sienna-hued nostrils flared, and after briefly looking at the towering griffin, Bolder snorted. He eyed the bird, followed by another questioning glance to Malik, and then prompted by his concern, spoke.

”What the hell happened to you?”

@ Malik

[Malik]

Malik has not been to the lake since the midsummer night when he’d had his throat cut, keeping instead to the highest of Hyaline’s peaks. He was not hiding, at least not intentionally, but nor had he made any effort to seek out any conversation. His mother had found him a few times, often enough that he was able to empathize with Sickle in an unexpected way.

He’d left home, and now Mazikeen is having another child. Was it his replacement?

His companion had chided him even as the bitter thought occurred to Malik, knowing that it was cruel even to think and that it wasn’t true. Malik had felt an uncomfortable flash of guilt, but refused to meet the blue gaze of the griffin. Years ago, the dark magician had torn the goodness from Malik just as it had torn it from Mazikeen, but his had taken the shape of the iridescent black griffin, the shredded and discarded bits of his soul coming together in a physical shape. Most of the time the iridescent creature act as his conscience.

But that morning Malik had been determined to be bitter despite Birdbrain’s scolding, and stomped his way through the forest early this morning with heavy hooves. It had taken the better part of the morning for the griffin to coax him into a better mood, only for that too to fall away when he reached the water’s edge.

At the sound of hooves, Malik turns, and is surprised to see Bolder moving closer. He’d expected a stranger, not his chestnut cousin and despite his sour mood feels the edges of his black mouth turn up in a smile. “Oh, you know,” he tone more jovial than he feels, “the usual.”

The usual. Bolder will know that for a lie, and perhaps because of the anticipated concern, Malik continues: “Just needed to get out of Hyaline for a while, you know. See the rest of the world. Except apparently it’s underwater now.”

He gestures at the wide expanse, peering for a moment with eagle’s eyes at the far distant orange islands that are the highest of Loess’ red buttes.

@bolder

[bolder]

Bolder sometimes got into fights.

Sometimes he lost himself to the wolf and fought for a place in a local pack. Sometimes he became a falcon sitting on a branch, ready to strike out at another for an easy meal. Sometimes he was just merely agitated, and whatever shape he took, he let the frustration out through the smack of a bear’s paw or a leopard’s fierce leap. Sometimes it got him into trouble, and there were a few scars on Bolder’s copper hide that remained as a testament to the few times that he had gotten carried away.

And while Malik was his usual choice for a sparring partner, the scars along his neck aren’t ones that he has placed there. Bolder eyes them with quiet suspicion, but when his cousin doesn’t mention where they come from, he doesn’t prod. He only flicks those slate-gray eyes up inquisitive before glancing back at the water. It laps quietly not far from their hooves, and Bolder considers something while he continues to listen.

It wasn’t like Malik not to be forthcoming. Perhaps not with a direct answer, but then his cousin never usually avoided a direct question. He had wanted to get out of Hyaline for a while, and that Bolder can understand. He does so frequently during the colder seasons, preferring the more tropical climates of Tephra and Ischia to the harsher winter one by the lake.

"Well, why don’t we go down there?” Bolder asks, finally looking up. Mazikeen had said that she wouldn’t mind learning what was down there, if the rumors of Baltians were actually true. He wouldn’t mind learning himself, and after a last glance at Malik over his winged shoulder, he dashed out to the water and disappeared in a splash. A few moments later, a gold-striped swordfish soared over a wave, as if to goad a nearby Malik in.

@ Malik

[Malik]

Bolder accepts his lie without ever looking up, and Malik feels some of the tension ease. His cousin will ask again later, he knows, because the pair of them are as close as brothers. And later Malik will answer truthfully, because even his darkest moods do not last forever.

When Bolder finally does meet his gaze, it’s with an unexpected suggestion. Go down and find out? He’s still considering it when the chestnut darts toward the water, and with a quick laugh, the black stallion follows after him.

Malik leaves his worries above the water, transforming into a black striped marlin as he sinks beneath the waves. The water is cool and smooth against his scales, and it is easy to lose himself in the joy of the swim and the shift. The shift he has chosen is predatory like many of his shifts of late, and Malik enjoys the strength within the streamlined shape.

Swift and agile, they race through the sunken kingdom of Loess. The weak morning light is enough to make the red hills shine even beneath a hundred feet of water. He’d come here once before, he tells Bolder, before it had sunk. There’s nothing here to indicate what might have happened. There’s no giant rift, only the kingdom of Loess far beneath the sea. He’s wondered if perhaps the south had been wiped out in an earthquake, but it seems that this is a shifting of a different sort.

“Do you think the horses who lived here all got out?” He asks. How quickly had the waters risen up? Malik knows little of the place despite his earlier visit - there had been a purple mare and a faceless monster. Had they escaped the waters or are they still down here amidst the canyons?

[bolder]

This is something that feels natural to Bolder. It feels as natural to him as any second-skin he might take, or even the first one that he had been born with. Even as a fish darting beneath the waves and finally diving deeper, swiftly racing through the currents with Malik, this is what natural order feels like to Bolder. It wasn’t like his cousin to hide anything from him – nor would Bolder hide anything from Malik – nor were these sullen moods.

It feels better to leave it behind them.

Bolder admires this shape – it has power and size – and he relishes both turning sharply through what remains of the Loessian rubble. He swims through and over the red-wall craters, down into the ravines before charging up towards the sunlight. The thought of leaping towards the surface propels him up, but the young shifter pauses halfway.

He looks beneath him again, eyeing what had once been the Southern Kingdom. Bolder takes notice of similar things that Malik does (and the thing that worries him most): that there is nothing that might explain why one day it resided above the sea and beneath the next. He listens as his cousin tells him that he had come to Loess once and the shifter begins the descent down towards the sandstone bottom.

”I don’t think so,” Bolder says through a series of air bubbles. He tells Malik about a pair of pegasi he encountered – a gray stallion and his amethyst-eyed daughter – searching for survivors not far from where they had stood. ”But maybe some did,” he clarifies, but the heavy silence that comes after suggests Bolder thinks otherwise.

”Does it look any different to you?” the large fish questions him, angling his pointed sword nose down towards the depths.

@ Malik