11-23-2019, 07:37 PM
In lion cub form, she rolls onto her back, dark eyes wide and worried, unfocused with building panic that shortens each breath until she is close to hyperventilating. There is a sparkling darkness shimmering at the corners of her vision, less like her Shadows and more like the nothing that swallowed her when she was drowning. This line of thought threatens to take her down perilous alleyways of memory, but the sound of Leilan's laugh draws her back, suddenly and with more than a hint of consternation creasing that feline brow. When he presses his muzzle against her, she grabs at it with dappled golden paws and wonders at the feeling of each fat toe as it spreads from its fellows and molds to the shape of him. A simple flex unsheathes her claws again, re-sheathes them. What is she supposed to do with these soft, fleshy feet and their secret hooks? Baffled, she turns her gaze away from them and back to the stallion who looms even larger than before.
"I-- I don't... trick?" Her voice is stilted and hesitant, unsure what his question means. It's not a trick, though, not something she was hiding, it's a disaster. Will she be this tiny, soft, thing forever? How will her mother ever recognize her now?
"Mama... oh." It had never actually occurred to her that her mother had a name, she was a sound, a smell, a feeling of warmth and safety. They had not interacted with other horses in their short time together, none, anyway, that had addressed her dam by name, or that she had felt the need to introduce herself to. Beryl's stomach turns to a knot of ice with the realization of it, her rounded ears falling sideways and long whiskers drooping. Where could the painted mare be, now? Would she have left the mountain's base, would she have gone back to the meadow or into the desert of Pangea? She has rolled up to her feet with an unfamiliar litheness but now sinks back down to her belly, flattening herself at his feet under the weight of her ignorance. "We were going to the desert. She said Papa ruled there-- but oh! No, no, don't take me there!"
Her voice threatens to crack and fade back to nothing but scratching whispers at the memory. The monsters. Black things, reflecting the sun like insects - the memory calls the Shadows close again and they gather, shaping themselves to it until she has constructed crude mimicries of the Xenomorph pair that hunt the canyons of Pangea. Their bony-plated armor does not shine, but they stalk and slaver, tendrils of shadowy saliva dripping shadows onto the snow. Knife-edged tails slice the air from side-to-side. They move in tandem with the precision of experienced predators, and even though Beryl-the-lion knows that she controls this particular pair, she buries her face in her paws with a shudder until the creatures close their yellow eyes and melt into the dimming twilight.
"They are there. Please, I don't want to go back.
"I-- I don't... trick?" Her voice is stilted and hesitant, unsure what his question means. It's not a trick, though, not something she was hiding, it's a disaster. Will she be this tiny, soft, thing forever? How will her mother ever recognize her now?
"Mama... oh." It had never actually occurred to her that her mother had a name, she was a sound, a smell, a feeling of warmth and safety. They had not interacted with other horses in their short time together, none, anyway, that had addressed her dam by name, or that she had felt the need to introduce herself to. Beryl's stomach turns to a knot of ice with the realization of it, her rounded ears falling sideways and long whiskers drooping. Where could the painted mare be, now? Would she have left the mountain's base, would she have gone back to the meadow or into the desert of Pangea? She has rolled up to her feet with an unfamiliar litheness but now sinks back down to her belly, flattening herself at his feet under the weight of her ignorance. "We were going to the desert. She said Papa ruled there-- but oh! No, no, don't take me there!"
Her voice threatens to crack and fade back to nothing but scratching whispers at the memory. The monsters. Black things, reflecting the sun like insects - the memory calls the Shadows close again and they gather, shaping themselves to it until she has constructed crude mimicries of the Xenomorph pair that hunt the canyons of Pangea. Their bony-plated armor does not shine, but they stalk and slaver, tendrils of shadowy saliva dripping shadows onto the snow. Knife-edged tails slice the air from side-to-side. They move in tandem with the precision of experienced predators, and even though Beryl-the-lion knows that she controls this particular pair, she buries her face in her paws with a shudder until the creatures close their yellow eyes and melt into the dimming twilight.
"They are there. Please, I don't want to go back.
Beryl
Litotes x Mehendi
@[Leilan]