A songbird’s tune stirs Cerva from her rest. It’s just barely audible as the sound travels from the treetops to her den below ground. Lifting her head slowly the girl blinks away her hazy vision and stares into the shadows of her small home. A sheet of sunlight reaches down through the burrowed entrance, but never touches her coat. The heat alone is enough to warn of the summer, but it’s waning. Autumn is approaching, she knows, and she flinches into a sit when she considers how long she had been hibernating. Many sunrises and sunsets have elapsed since she last opened her eyes and drank in the scenery, but age never touched her. There is no ache in her bones or exhaustion in her muscles. When she stretches she still feels young as though she had somehow drunk from the fountain of youth. When she peers up at the entrance of her den it’s still with that innocent curiosity so often found in children.
A shudder runs down the length of her back as she stares at the opening in the ground, wondering. Will father be there? What of her siblings? Will they still be around or did they tuck themselves into the shadows like her?
No, her family is much more ambitious and successful. They wouldn’t hide like their craven daughter or sister.
After swallowing past the lump in her throat she inches toward the edge and is immediately enveloped by the bright summer sun. It cradles her like a worried mother, caressing her small body and welcoming her back after so long. ”Hello,”she whispers sweetly as a smile shakily appears on her lips. Vines of poison ivy are intertwined around her den much like a spider web that she had intricately created. It reminds her of who – what – she is.
Her body shakes away the debris and fluidly shifts from a badger to a horse. Her claws are traded for hooves, her jagged teeth for blunt, and her larger blaze formed of tree bark.
A long breath is drawn in and held. Her eyes shut for a moment then flutter open when the air is exhaled in hesitation. Somehow she had found herself near the Gates border. Something lured her as a badger, enough so to burrow and seclude herself nearby for all this time. It stands in front of her now; she knows the different kingdoms, their locations, their scents, their etiquette. Everything rushes back now as her mind wraps around being here, being in her true form. She doesn’t venture in even as she hears voices on the horizon. Even when she knows they’re there, Cerva is a statue and resigns to waiting patiently as she tries to refigure her longer legs.
Cerva
this is so shitastic and I'm sorry lmao