It feels so real.
As she snaps back to reality, as she comes to her senses, she can feel the other world on the very tip of her tongue. She feels the way it had felt to lead the pack—to know what it meant to carve a new path for herself within the confines of this world. Similarly, she feels the loss so deeply. The loss of her children (although they are already scattered to the wind), the isolation, and the divide of herself from the tiger.
It is why the first thing that she does is shift, finding herself sighing with relief.
She turns her heavy head toward the magician and there is no victory in her gaze—nothing that speaks of the fact that the other mare had witnessed such personal truths of her. “Unclear,” she finally says with a twitch of her feline lip, a flash of white teeth. “I will let you know as soon as I decide.”
And then, when the other mare disappears, Sochi turns and does the same. She ignores those around her, especially the dragon because it still hurts too much to look at him. Instead, she slips into the shadows and immediately begins to search for the trails of a scent—something to dull the grinding ache in her stomach.
When she has found, and fed, she rests.
When she awakes, it is dawn. The light streaks pink across the sky and there is still the chill of winter that has yet to bend to the beginning of spring. She shakes the dust from her feline coat and feels something roil within her that she has not felt for months—something more than the pregnancy swelling her belly more and more every day. It is ambition and a steely resolve and she fully intends to capitalize on it.
She makes her way, for the first time in her life, to the field.
It is barren, and she is not surprised. She herself has never sought to find a home here and she doesn’t truly know if she is seeking that now. A purpose perhaps—or a deal. She doesn’t know exactly, but she knows that she has something worth bargaining with, and she intends to make the most of it.
she said a war ain't a war before both sides bleed
Sochi is seeking a home / a deal with her shiny new magical entity.