[open] the night that i walked

[bolder]

He frantically flaps his wings, though his taloned claws clutch tightly at the bark of the branch that Bolder had landed on. Despite the way that his lower half still clings to the tree limb, the young sparrow remains airborne. When it becomes apparent to Bolder that the other shifter won't (or can't) move, he squawks again and abandons the branch entirely for Sickle. His speckled wings tilt down as the striped bird flies towards where the shadowy mass approaches. The glint of his talon catches menacingly in the sunlight, (and though Bolder can't know he does it, he curses the creature in a bird's tongue, calls it a moldering worm) and the winged creature continues to flap his wings until Bolder puts himself between the entity and the squirrel known as Sickle.

His moon-marked head becomes pointed and snarling, as he grows and grows, until Bolder is an angry red-and-gold Raccoon. He snarls a warning at the thing, and it stops.

The creature that had been a similar size to the filly - something small and rodent-like - no longer was. It becomes nothing but a writhing mass in the center of the tree. Bolder watches the thing with guarded silver eyes, but the way it moves makes him think of the early morning fog in Taiga. Somehow, though, it's flat and lacks dimension. Strange, Bolder thinks as he continues to stare at it. He doesn't look away from it, but one of his shoulders drops slightly so that he might see Sickle if she looks in his direction. Whatever the shadow had been before, it was nothing now.

And more oddly, it remained directly in front of them with no indication that it intended to come closer.

"Sickle?" Bolder asks her in a hushed tone, "Do you think you can move?"

@Sickle