God, it's beautiful here! So many different biomes so close together, and all so easily accessible with the help of Grandma's convenient dragon flight. Oh, we've visited together in spirit before, in dreams, but it's not nearly the same as feeling the earth beneath my hooves—hooves! I'm still getting used to that idea. Warned or not, I've never been a prey shape before, and it's so bizarre. Dad and Grandma both teared up when they saw me as a horse for the first time, my shape changed by the magic of this land. I guess they figured I'd be some combination of my dads' coloring, silver black and grullo tobiano. Neither of them were expecting me to be so close in color to Grandma's long-lost love. Genetics-wise, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Dad didn't inherit the roan gene, so I shouldn't have been able to either. But Grandma says the soul doesn't always make logical choices, and that maybe mine wanted to do something to honor one of the women who made my incarnation possible.
Regardless of how I came out this way, I think I like it. I've got Dad's long, white mane and tail with a few little strands of silver. My face and legs are the same not-quite-black as Dad's, and the rest of me roans into that same lovely silvery shade as the stray hairs in my mane and tail. And my eyes are gold as ever, of course. Pretty, I guess. I was disappointed, to be completely honest, that there was nothing of my Papa in the color of my coat. No splashes of white, no dun markings, not even a tiny little snip of white on the end of my nose I could catch glimpses of and think, There. That's from my Pa. But Grandma said she sees him in the shape of this body, the fineness of build, the planes of my face. She and Dad are built drafty, broad and heavily-muscled with feathering all down their legs. I'm all clean lines and gentle curves. Which is not to say Papa is effeminate! Just that he is not built like a tank, like Dad and Grandma are.
Knowing there is some of him in me helped ease the disappointment a bit, but I confess it lingered right up until I saw him. Well, until I recognized him. Well, okay. Until Dad recognized him. I'd never seen him as a horse, and I hadn't seen him as a man since I was a toddler. I knew him by the tension in Dad's face, the clench of his jaw, the flaring of his nostrils. I knew him by the pain in Dad's mismatched eyes and the stiffness of his posture. He always used to get that closed off look when I asked about Papa when I was younger, and it translated to horse surprisingly well. I saw Zur in the agony written in every line of his body, and I knew. “Papa!” Oh, I had thrown myself into his embrace, melted into his skin and held on like I was drowning and he was my only source of air. My long lost Papa, finally returned to me.
All the more reason to love this place.
And now we're a happy little family again, the granting of my most heartfelt childhood wish. Oh, it took a while, months of Dad fighting the inevitable and doing his whole silent stubborn stay strong thing, but eventually he surrendered to the pull of his heart. My dads are forever. They also bang a lot, so I've recruited Grandma to show me around and tell me stories—she's always been so good at storytelling, has my Grandma. This time she showed me the Jungle, where she was queen once upon a time. Where Dad and all his siblings lived, where my dads met and fell in love, and where the bones of our dead are buried. We bathed beneath her favorite waterfall, played with a new generation of jaguar cubs, and visited the remains of her garden of carnivorous plants.
Thing is, while I loved every minute of our trip there, I could see the way it made her ache, made her burn all over again for a time long past and a life she would never live again. When it got the weight of the past got a little too heavy, I glanced at up at the canopy as if checking the position of the sun in the sky. “Think we gave them long enough?” I asked, a wry grin on my face.
Ah, Grandma snorted and bumped her nose against my shoulder. “Probably not. But they'll live.” And she scooped me up in suddenly dragon-shaped claws and here we are, back in our new home. Echo Trails. A new place for a new beginning, yeah? None of us have lived here before, but it's lovely. Willows line the river that flows through our new home, limbs draping gracefully down to trail in the current. Game trails crisscross through sprawling oak forests, and these lovely meadows stretch out with tons of weird edible plants I would've never touched before we came here. Vegetarian. Bizarre. Thankfully my appetite adjusted alright to this new shape, and I have at least some understanding of Papa's old dietary habits. Dad and I were the carnivores of the family, back in another life, in another world. But we had wolves in us. Still do somewhere, even if we can't reach them anymore. Maybe someday we will again.
For now, though...
“Oh good. I was worried we'd get back too soon and you two would still be going at it.” Grandma snorts, a little puff of smoke sneaking its way out her nostrils as she sets me down next to my sprawled-out dads, who are still covered in sweat and tangled up in each other. “You guys are adorable, you know that?”
“Don't expect them to say the same about you if they ever find you in a similar situation,” Grandma quips, arching a brow even as she's shifting back to horse form. Ah, I love this one, the sunny-bright splashes of yellow and white on her lovely Gypsy frame. I nuzzle the cute little feather-shaped patch on her shoulder, my absolute favorite. I remember that story, her and Raye-girl when they were very small, and Grandma shifting into a canary and perching on Raye's head. So cute.
“No, I doubt they'll find anything remotely adorable about that,” I reply, grinning as Dad growls softly. It's so easy. And so fun. “Thankfully they haven't caught me yet, but I'm sure it's bound to happen someday. Especially if I'm ever dumb enough to bring someone home instead of hooking up in the Meadow or something.”
Regardless of how I came out this way, I think I like it. I've got Dad's long, white mane and tail with a few little strands of silver. My face and legs are the same not-quite-black as Dad's, and the rest of me roans into that same lovely silvery shade as the stray hairs in my mane and tail. And my eyes are gold as ever, of course. Pretty, I guess. I was disappointed, to be completely honest, that there was nothing of my Papa in the color of my coat. No splashes of white, no dun markings, not even a tiny little snip of white on the end of my nose I could catch glimpses of and think, There. That's from my Pa. But Grandma said she sees him in the shape of this body, the fineness of build, the planes of my face. She and Dad are built drafty, broad and heavily-muscled with feathering all down their legs. I'm all clean lines and gentle curves. Which is not to say Papa is effeminate! Just that he is not built like a tank, like Dad and Grandma are.
Knowing there is some of him in me helped ease the disappointment a bit, but I confess it lingered right up until I saw him. Well, until I recognized him. Well, okay. Until Dad recognized him. I'd never seen him as a horse, and I hadn't seen him as a man since I was a toddler. I knew him by the tension in Dad's face, the clench of his jaw, the flaring of his nostrils. I knew him by the pain in Dad's mismatched eyes and the stiffness of his posture. He always used to get that closed off look when I asked about Papa when I was younger, and it translated to horse surprisingly well. I saw Zur in the agony written in every line of his body, and I knew. “Papa!” Oh, I had thrown myself into his embrace, melted into his skin and held on like I was drowning and he was my only source of air. My long lost Papa, finally returned to me.
All the more reason to love this place.
And now we're a happy little family again, the granting of my most heartfelt childhood wish. Oh, it took a while, months of Dad fighting the inevitable and doing his whole silent stubborn stay strong thing, but eventually he surrendered to the pull of his heart. My dads are forever. They also bang a lot, so I've recruited Grandma to show me around and tell me stories—she's always been so good at storytelling, has my Grandma. This time she showed me the Jungle, where she was queen once upon a time. Where Dad and all his siblings lived, where my dads met and fell in love, and where the bones of our dead are buried. We bathed beneath her favorite waterfall, played with a new generation of jaguar cubs, and visited the remains of her garden of carnivorous plants.
Thing is, while I loved every minute of our trip there, I could see the way it made her ache, made her burn all over again for a time long past and a life she would never live again. When it got the weight of the past got a little too heavy, I glanced at up at the canopy as if checking the position of the sun in the sky. “Think we gave them long enough?” I asked, a wry grin on my face.
Ah, Grandma snorted and bumped her nose against my shoulder. “Probably not. But they'll live.” And she scooped me up in suddenly dragon-shaped claws and here we are, back in our new home. Echo Trails. A new place for a new beginning, yeah? None of us have lived here before, but it's lovely. Willows line the river that flows through our new home, limbs draping gracefully down to trail in the current. Game trails crisscross through sprawling oak forests, and these lovely meadows stretch out with tons of weird edible plants I would've never touched before we came here. Vegetarian. Bizarre. Thankfully my appetite adjusted alright to this new shape, and I have at least some understanding of Papa's old dietary habits. Dad and I were the carnivores of the family, back in another life, in another world. But we had wolves in us. Still do somewhere, even if we can't reach them anymore. Maybe someday we will again.
For now, though...
“Oh good. I was worried we'd get back too soon and you two would still be going at it.” Grandma snorts, a little puff of smoke sneaking its way out her nostrils as she sets me down next to my sprawled-out dads, who are still covered in sweat and tangled up in each other. “You guys are adorable, you know that?”
“Don't expect them to say the same about you if they ever find you in a similar situation,” Grandma quips, arching a brow even as she's shifting back to horse form. Ah, I love this one, the sunny-bright splashes of yellow and white on her lovely Gypsy frame. I nuzzle the cute little feather-shaped patch on her shoulder, my absolute favorite. I remember that story, her and Raye-girl when they were very small, and Grandma shifting into a canary and perching on Raye's head. So cute.
“No, I doubt they'll find anything remotely adorable about that,” I reply, grinning as Dad growls softly. It's so easy. And so fun. “Thankfully they haven't caught me yet, but I'm sure it's bound to happen someday. Especially if I'm ever dumb enough to bring someone home instead of hooking up in the Meadow or something.”