"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
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.
