02-24-2020, 09:32 PM
She is lost in the sounds of the autumnal wood, migrating birds are raucous and wild, flitting from tree to tree and occasionally rising in sudden, great flocks to swoop and fly and land as one giant moldable beast, a darkening of the sun and sky as though they are one of her Shadows. The squirrels and chipmunks are busy and loud, they skitter and scold, and after nearly a year in this shape, she finds it hard to turn off that predatory nature that wants to chase and pounce, yet there is a laziness to her hunting, too. The creatures think they are safe in their burrows from a hunter as large as she, yet the shadows within those dens will turn on their inhabitants if she asks it of them.
... Most of the time.
Beryl knows what Leilan would say if she said that to him. He would tell her - as he has over and over - that the Shadows are not her friends, they are not even servants, which still implies that they are capable of free will. He would say that she does or does not control them fully by her own wishes and design, that they do not always listen because she does not want them to, or she is being too lazy to direct them properly (and both of these things have been true, too, at times), and never because they have made a choice. But he has not heard their hissing voices in his ear, has not felt the resistance when she asks too much, and - she is so sure! - he does not know what it is like for a friendless child to be told that the only companions she has in the entire world besides her adopted father are not - cannot - be real the way she believes.
If she were not so sure that Leilan is wrong, her mood would be at risk of darkening again, but the bright, warm shafts of light that dapple the forest floor awaken a distant sense of adventure that has slept dormant beneath the northern ice that settled there. A red squirrel runs across her path and she gives chase to the bushy-tailed prey, bounding after it flanked by yellow-eyed snakes. It is no more than a bit of terrified fur, not even enough for a reasonable snack, these days, but she chases him half way up the mottled trunk of a sycamore tree, and laughs as he scolds her from the safety of its branches as she, marring the trunk with sharp claws, slides back to earth.
The young lion is so taken up with this game that she does not see the tiger picking his way carefully up from the river. The Shadows whisper their hoarse warnings in her ear just as the striped boy rounds the bend and Beryl snaps to sudden attention, drawing herself up tall and thin, then flattening against the roots of the clawed tree. Tufted ear catch his curse delightedly, but she sweeps them back a second later, nervously. Despite their similar ages, he is so much larger than her, a product of his shape and, perhaps, a more fortunate childhood. The forest darkens in response to the perceived threat - can he see all those unblinking, yellow, eyes? Halcyon speaks again, an olive branch, and she lifts her head slightly to meet his golden gaze, but hesitates made shy and tentative by her isolation. Silence stretches over long seconds.
"H-hi?"
The word almost dies on her tongue but she presses it out, determined. Almost immediately, though, the noisome quiet of the forest takes over. She bats a a leaf stirring in the breeze, tearing her eyes away from Halcyon's. It's too much, too much to look at him and speak.
"I-- My name's Beryl... What's a flying finned fish?"
... Most of the time.
Beryl knows what Leilan would say if she said that to him. He would tell her - as he has over and over - that the Shadows are not her friends, they are not even servants, which still implies that they are capable of free will. He would say that she does or does not control them fully by her own wishes and design, that they do not always listen because she does not want them to, or she is being too lazy to direct them properly (and both of these things have been true, too, at times), and never because they have made a choice. But he has not heard their hissing voices in his ear, has not felt the resistance when she asks too much, and - she is so sure! - he does not know what it is like for a friendless child to be told that the only companions she has in the entire world besides her adopted father are not - cannot - be real the way she believes.
If she were not so sure that Leilan is wrong, her mood would be at risk of darkening again, but the bright, warm shafts of light that dapple the forest floor awaken a distant sense of adventure that has slept dormant beneath the northern ice that settled there. A red squirrel runs across her path and she gives chase to the bushy-tailed prey, bounding after it flanked by yellow-eyed snakes. It is no more than a bit of terrified fur, not even enough for a reasonable snack, these days, but she chases him half way up the mottled trunk of a sycamore tree, and laughs as he scolds her from the safety of its branches as she, marring the trunk with sharp claws, slides back to earth.
The young lion is so taken up with this game that she does not see the tiger picking his way carefully up from the river. The Shadows whisper their hoarse warnings in her ear just as the striped boy rounds the bend and Beryl snaps to sudden attention, drawing herself up tall and thin, then flattening against the roots of the clawed tree. Tufted ear catch his curse delightedly, but she sweeps them back a second later, nervously. Despite their similar ages, he is so much larger than her, a product of his shape and, perhaps, a more fortunate childhood. The forest darkens in response to the perceived threat - can he see all those unblinking, yellow, eyes? Halcyon speaks again, an olive branch, and she lifts her head slightly to meet his golden gaze, but hesitates made shy and tentative by her isolation. Silence stretches over long seconds.
"H-hi?"
The word almost dies on her tongue but she presses it out, determined. Almost immediately, though, the noisome quiet of the forest takes over. She bats a a leaf stirring in the breeze, tearing her eyes away from Halcyon's. It's too much, too much to look at him and speak.
"I-- My name's Beryl... What's a flying finned fish?"
Beryl
Litotes x Mehendi
@[Halcyon]