[private] until the night turns

[bolder]

Bolder turns his moon-marked head back towards his sire, watching in confusion as Nashua glares at his Uncle.

"They've been teaching me to shift," the young pegasus says and tries approaching his father. He doesn't understand this, how being himself has caused such a powerful response from Nashua. He knew that, eventually, they would come; of course, they would. They were his parents and Bolder has never doubted that he was loved and cared for.

He and his siblings were brought up to know that they were their parent's pride.

But there is nothing of pride on his father's face. Some part of him knew it would happen like this. He had always been told that shifting could lead to eventual madness. You borrow too many shapes, was what he had been taught, and you eventually lose your own. Bolder had been afraid to shift growing up, afraid that he'd eventually go mad.

Afraid that he'd upset his father.

"I haven't gone crazy," says the young shifter. "It's not like that." He tries to explain.

The image of Bolder with the dead animal in his mouth is seared into Nashua's mind. It was just one small animal, but how long until Bolder moved onto something larger? How long before the young pegasus took down another horse? The Curse had manifested itself in his older brother, but with the disappearance of his twin and now this, his youngest son shifting, it's almost too much for him to bear. 

Nashua had already known that they wouldn't be bringing Bolder home.

He knew that they would have to do something about Gale and Mazikeen - imprison them, tie them to the entities they had stolen, exorcise them - but that they had done this. They had not only taught his son how to shift, but how to kill as well. Something in Nashua's heart breaks for his child, and for his lost brother as well, while a black hatred seeps out to flow through his veins.

There was no forgiving this.

And Bolder's reply only cements that: "I want to stay."

@ Gale