05-11-2023, 11:22 AM
DRETCH
html © dante.
| ... and from your lips she drew your hallelujah |
| She loves to fly and she takes to the air any chance that she gets. She closes her eyes, soaking in the feeling of the wind rushing past and around her, cradling her in utter weightlessness. It’s cold up here in the higher altitudes and although she doesn’t mind, it would seem that the flock she’s been tagging along with for the past several days does, and in unison, they lazily wing lower. She can take on their shapes and natural abilities, but her communication with them is limited to what she learns in experience, and she misses the initial cue, subtle as it is. A few awkward flaps and she’s back on track, remaining on their fringes. They had only grudgingly accepted her amongst them after she had managed to perfect their shape (that one shift with the beak and the hooves … shudder), and she only lingers in order to learn. They fly over the river and wing west between two mountains before turning northward. She recognizes the Chamber as they cross over its borders, though it is not somewhere she has been before. It disappeared before her lifetime (something she’s only just recently learned will never end … not naturally, at least), but lived on in memory and Set had spoken of his childhood home and the kingdom he had ruled many times. Many, many times. Insert eye roll. To her disappointment, the others drop even further, settling into a copse of pines on the edge of a clearing surrounding a tree … a tree that seems to be on fire. Hopping from the branch she landed on to another, she crooks her head, contemplating the red-orange flames as it begins to consume the stalwart pine. But it never blackens, never crumbles. Curious. Her attention bounces from the tree to her surroundings and back again before snagging on a lovely young mare, run through with the colors of tarnished metals, beneath them. She seems distracted, her narrowed eyes turned upward as her gaze follows a crooked path. It takes Dretch a moment to realize she’s watching one of the other ravens. He is a remarkably large raven, of the sort who cannot help but cause trouble when presented with the opportunity, and he takes exception to the attention, screeching and buffeting the air with his wings. To what end, Dretch doesn’t know. Not her problem. She flies back up to the top of the tallest pine in the vicinity, the only raven in it as the others choose trees nearer the strange tree. Ruffling her feathers around her and adjusting her grip on the rough bark, Dretch settles down into herself, dozing off. The squawking and cawing doesn’t wake her up at first. She’s been traveling with the lot for the better part of the colder season and grew accustomed to their raucous squabbles. But as it continues to grow in intensity, she reluctantly opens one eye. They’re divebombing the filly she’d seen earlier, a loud, whirling mass of feathered confusion. Blinking slowly, Dretch watches as the girl ricochets back and forth, dodging beaks and claws. Her movements grow more frantic until she’s shouting and … The little roan is standing amidst the carnage, the final caw stretching out and then folding in on itself until it’s silent but for the sound of adrenaline-soaked breaths of disbelief and regret. She stutters an apology, and Dretch contains her laughter for another beat before she cannot contain it anymore. She drops from the branch (and now she’s even more thankful that her alliances with the unkindnessness had been loose) like a rock, cackling all the way. Halfway down, she finally manages to gather herself enough to not break every bone in her bird body on the ground, and she flies low toward the girl still standing amongst the impaled ravens. Still chuckling, her black eyes wet with mirth, she shifts back to her natural form, not bothering to pick her way through the bodies as she closes the remaining distance. A loud crack of bone and she’s near enough to touch, her amusement still plain. “Don’t waste your regrets on this lot,” she says companionably, nudging one with her foot and inspecting the thin spikes protruding from its body. Her grey eyes catch on gold ones (and for a hairsbreadth of a moment, she could swear that she sees Set staring back out at her) and she smiles what she intends to be a warm smile, but the corner of her lip tends to catch on one of her fangs. “Do you live here? My father lived here once … he ruled it once, even.” She has forgotten the girls shock, whether it’s youth or her nurtured numbness to all things unnatural. She well knows the unsettledness that comes with these sorts of things, but she's already forgotten what it was like when she first started shifting. Or when she discovered that she's no longer technically living ... what a trip. “Well, he’s not really my father, he’s like, my great grandfather or something like that. But, he raised me. Well, he and Uncle Niklas.” She narrows her eyes slightly at the mention of her gaunt uncle. “I’m Dretch, by the way." |
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Sol