They didn’t have to scramble or grovel. They merely chatted and smiled, exchanged pleasantries, and suddenly Marlyn is telling them that the magic will be restored to their broken souls. Cerva glances to Dovev worriedly but says nothing. Instead she sidles closer to him, wanting – needing – his warmth to reassure her like a blanket. Her muzzle finds the curve of his shoulder and nestles into it gingerly while breathing in his musky scent. It lulls her as pangs of fear riddle her mind. This could be a trap or maybe even a trick, but Marlyn seems far too kind for such antics and Dovev is confident and brave in the matter.
(Why can’t I be so lionhearted?)
Cerva is supposed to be the mother figure and yet she is meek in the face of this proposition. She doesn’t shy away but her eyes are glassy with concern until she closes them and presses her face into Dovev.
Then it’s done.
It’s as though pieces of herself are paved back together and sustained by a far greater magic. Her muscles quiver unexpectedly and her heart quickly patters against her chest. Marlyn is speaking and while Cerva still has her eyes shut and her cheek resting against Dovev she is still listening. Only after she has bid them a quick farewell does Cerva have the bravery to peel herself away from her son’s side to look at him. There had been the sense of shifting in his body as though he was changing, but when her eyes open to see him, there is no difference. Her mouth opens to speak, but before she can muster the strength to say anything he is already asking how she feels.
At first, she shrugs uncertainly.
”I’m whole again,” she senses the fullness inside herself as the pieces fit back together after almost a year apart. ”I can try,” she has to search herself for the power after having lacked it for so long. The gentle brush of magic has become foreign and so strange, but she taps into it curiously. It triggers a warmth in the pit of her stomach and her body trembles anxiously. With another bout of effort, she can feel the pulse of the earth in her legs and it slowly creeps higher and higher into her body. Her eyes shine brightly when she sees vines of ivy slipping across the ground and coiling up her limbs. ”Yes,” she whispers inaudibly before retracting herself and inching back against Dovev. ”My poison ivy,” she murmurs happily as more vines slither toward her like snakes. They begin to reach for her, wanting her, but then she severs the tie and they halt. The vines that had been inching up her legs collapse as though suddenly dead by blight, wilting and curling away from her.
Unable to stop her curiosity, Cerva delves deeper inside herself and remembers how it had once been to shift. The unfamiliarity of it is daunting initially, but within a few moments she has become a badger scrambling across the ground curiously. She takes pause to admire her claws and all that she has become, but it’s short-lived as she reverts back to her equine self in order to stand once again by Dovev’s side. ”It’s wonderful.”
Cerva