He followed her. Of course he did. He would never admit that to anyone, of course - though if Aela ever found the ability to look inside his mind, she would know immediately that he felt as he had no other choice. He had been thrown into a life of complacency when he was obviously born for greatness and out of every one he has met, Aela is the only one who could see that (or challenge it) and for that reason, the young colt could not refuse her. It irritates him, of course, that this golden girl captured his attention so fully and quickly; but Skandar believes himself wise beyond his years and he knows the path to greatness is led by the silent girl he had met by chance.
Skandar was still learning about Pangea - the territory itself and how it had been formed (Aela knew all the stories of old and politely informed him of all of its former glory), as well as learning the different paths the canyons carry him and which areas were dead ends. He found Pangea itself eerie as if something heavy and unbearable has stretched itself across its terrain, flickering tepidly and only waiting for a single spark to light it. Sometimes the wind would howl through the dusty rock and the colt would allow his spine to shiver from tip to tail as it echoed the entire territory.
She finds him easily (or he assumes so because he seems to always be right where she needs him) and he throws his head upward in a gentle huff, looking for her. He looks himself today - nothing out of the ordinary save for the indigo and burnt orange of his natural skin, winking with the soft sparks of the constellations that paint his skin. Her thoughts are immediately his own (something intimate, he feels, in the way she so easily enters his mind) and he cannot help the half-smirk that cracks across his indigo mouth. He’d never say it to her out loud, of course, but he finds it a compliment that she remembers his ability so fondly.
In an instant, his body shimmers and then his skin begins to peel, flapping against each other like feathers. Beneath the outer edges of purple and orange - instead of the color of blood and muscle and sinew - darkness writhes. It seems to pour out of him, spilling across his constellation skin and outward, wrapping him in shadow. He becomes the shadow in the canyons, dark and pulsing, a black spot that does not belong in the clay of the twisted path he was on.
Skandar comes before her as only shadow, melding into her own that is cast on the ground before taking any sort of shape that would resemble an equine. She would know it was him, of course, as it came rushing over the horizon, sinister and relentless. He whispers her name though he has no mouth, but the smile on his face becomes discernable as he takes shape beside her - a shadow creature but those same, intense orange eyes.
skandar
@[Aela]