[private] its harder than you think, mazikeen

[bolder]

The brightening day gives Bolder’s gray eyes a curious glint when he glances next to his Aunt. After telling her what had happened on the Mountain, and what little he remembered after, the moon-marked pegasus hadn’t been sure what Mazikeen’s reaction might be. Though he is now of an equal height to the Alpha, there will always be a part of him that will look up to her.

That will want her approval, and even now, Bolder searches her pale face for a sign of what Mazikeen’s reaction to all this might be.

”Like nereids?” the striped stallion questioned her lightly, almost teasing in his tone. He’d spent time in Ischia before; he had enjoyed the tropics of Beqanna (and though he wouldn’t admit it in the presence of Mazikeen, he enjoyed the company of its lovely residents as well). Hyaline would always be his home, but the winters there could be bitter and long. Perhaps not as much as Taiga, but it didn’t mean that Bolder didn’t enjoy exploring the warmer climates of Beqanna during the colder months.

”I could try and learn more,” he offered earnestly to the black-pointed mare. Perhaps he might learn some truth beyond the rumors, and if that information might help Mazikeen and the Pack, all the better. Maybe Malik might join him; they could assume a disguise and make a cousins trip out of it without ever attracting notice back to Hyaline. He distracted himself with the thought and lifted his head absent-mindedly, contemplating the possibility, hoping that there was some truth in Mazikeen’s words.

That what was wrong with him was just some kind of stray, strange magic from the Mountain.

There was little else he could do after Bolder spoke about Carnage, and the ground-shaking, and tumbling into darkness. After he revealed that he had brought some of it out with him. It rippled against his skin (at least the parts that still remained in the sun) in dark waves and the shapeshifter shook his head. ”No,” he explained, ”It feels strange. Like…,” Bolder lifted his eyes to the branches overhead them and his brow furrowed as he struggled to describe the sensation. Bolder drew back his wing away from the light and quickly, his feathers regained their copper hue. ”You know when you wake up and sometimes another part of you remains asleep?” Glancing back, the pegasus tried to meet his Aunt’s fire-orange gaze.

”It feels different, but I still feel like… me.” He went on to tell her. ”If that makes sense?”

@Mazikeen