[private] stagnant.

[Vastra]

She watches the bird, allowing the bright blue plumage to distract her, and she perks up a little when she sees it circling back towards her – until the bird shifts into a mare. The change is so surprising, so exactly on the subject of her thoughts, that a rather inelegant noise of surprise escapes her. And then, for a moment, the sand-coloured mare is just too dazzled to speak. Then, dazzled shifts into anger and jealousy, which she has to forcibly shove down. It’s not this stranger’s fault that she has been struggling with her own shifting for the last couple years since she’s returned. That she just shifted from bird to horse with no effort at all and meanwhile her last shift had involved a broken wing and so much screaming that others had come to investigate what had happened to her. In this very spot, no less, so the wound feels a little extra raw. Her ears had flattened in annoyance but she takes a breath to calm herself down, not really thinking about how crazy she probably looks. What had this blue-feathered mare asked? What had she lost? “Everything.” She grunts out finally. How much is too much to share with a stranger? What is it about this damn river that makes her interactions with others involve vulnerability and a weakness she wishes to cut out of herself. But, though there isn’t much common-sense in her brain there is enough to keep her from elaborating on that ‘everything’. It wasn’t fair to just spill that, right? There’s so many rules about conversations. Instead of trying to figure it out, instead of admitting she’s not sure what to do with the conversation, she changes the subject rather bluntly – though her curiosity is obvious now as it takes over her expression and calms the burning fire in her gaze. “Is it always that bird?”  With her heavy, dumb tongue she's not sure how else to phrase it, but hopefully the other mare will pick up on what she means. Does she always shift into that particular bird? v a s t r a

artwork by space1993

@[Heloise]