03-10-2020, 12:49 AM
<link href='https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Roboto Condensed' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'> <style type="text/css"> .sochi2_container { position: relative; z-index: 1; background: #000; width: 600px; padding: 0 0 0 0; border: solid 1px #1b1a1a; box-shadow: 0px 0px 10px 1px #000; } .sochi2_container p { margin: 0; } .sochi2_image { position: relative; z-index: 4; width: 600px; } .sochi2_text { position: relative; z-index: 6; width: 580px; margin-top: -250px; background: #1b1a1a; border: solid 1px #65605f; border-bottom: none; } .sochi2_message { position: relative; font: 12px 'Times New Roman', serif; text-align: justify; color: #65605f; padding: 30px; } .sochi2_name { position: absolute; z-index: 10; color: #65605f; font: 15px 'Roboto Condensed', sans-serif; letter-spacing: 10px; top: 500px; left: 90px; } .sochi2_quote { font: 10px 'Roboto Condensed', sans-serif; text-align: center; text-transform: uppercase; letter-spacing: 3px; color: #918889; padding-bottom: 30px; } </style> <center> <div class="sochi2_container"> <div class="sochi2_name">SOCHI</b></div> <img class="sochi2_image" src="https://i.postimg.cc/gjjqMQ1y/sochi3.png"> <div class="sochi2_text"> <p class="sochi2_message"> She is silent as the mare speaks although there is the hint of a smile at the edge of her firm mouth. The hint of something like understanding when she hears of Straia’s past life and a small nod as she takes in the lesson within the words. Sochi is still when the world begins to fade away and, for a moment, when she is left in the darkness—in this abyss that is hers for the making.
She takes a deep breath, inhaling her thoughts, and then she lets it go.
When she does, the world comes rushing into roaring color around her. It is dazzling in its kaleidoscope of sensations as everything comes into stark reality—and when she opens her eyes, she realizes that she is in the forest. She takes a step forward, testing her weight, and she reaches for the tigress within her before realizing that it is not there. She tries again and there is nothing. No ripple, no shadow of anything.
It is a haunting feeling to be stripped so clean of her other self.
But she remembers her words, remembers the weight of them, and she does not dwell for long on it. Not when there is so much to do. So she grits her teeth and turns into the forest and gets to work.
She hunts the shifters. At first, the large cats because they are what she knows best (even though their very presence makes her ache). She finds the other tigers, the mountain lions, the jaguars. She even finds the panther of Hyaline who had ripped her to shreds in a war from another time. She draws them forth on a promise of a new world order; of a dream where the kingdoms were not ones with borders and ranks and the silly notions of this world but where power flowed from something deeper, something primal.
When her pack has grown in size, she turns her attention to the other shifters. Those of the air, those of the sea, and others of the land. Sochi recruits Risk, a shifter of many skins and uses him to find others like him. She pulls them into the nucleus of her growing family and lets them settle into natural order.
(She does not invite the dragons, does not entertain the notion of it.)
Finally, when they are large enough, a roaming pack of them, she begins to direct them toward the kingdoms. The attacks are small, at first. Raids in the middle of the night. Some to steal away those who do not fight. Some to destroy the markers on borders, as if sending a message. Some simply to rankle the residents and remind them of their power. But the fights are not as effective as the whispers.
The whispers of the pack who roams without law.
The pack that does not abide by political notions or alliances. They are rogues. They are wild. They are led by the silver-eyed mare but she does not direct their every move or order them into things they do not wish. There is an understanding of the natural law. The strong survive. The weak do not. She does not ignore such truths and she does not pretend that they do not exist. It is the way of the world, after all.
In time, the weakest kingdoms crumble.
Some of the larger kingdoms hold on, but they recognize the strength of the pack and do not interfere. They do not press their ideologies into the wild animals and, in turn, Sochi leaves them alone.
The ideas spread and other, small groups spring up. Some, like herds, are peaceful gatherings of prey—and although they are not immune to the hunting of the pack, they are not an immediate target. Others are packs of competition. In some cases, they cross paths and battles break out, but they are never more than a good, clean fight between predators over food and territory and other such primitive things. They are always solved with bloodshed, and there is never any dispute about which pack rises the strongest.
Sochi often leads the charge in such fights.
And, when she does not fight, she revels in the freedom afforded to her in this world.
She mourns, sometimes, the loss of the tiger within her. She mourns the family that she had built on the bedrock of the old world. She mourns the woman that she had once become.
But she wakes and shakes the dreadlocked mane across her neck. She looks at the silvery scars that spiderweb across her equine form and watches the pack as they hunt, as they feast, as they rest.
And she knows that she has carved out a place in this world free of laws once thought writ in stone.
</p> <p class="sochi2_quote">she said a war ain't a war before both sides bleed</p> </div> </div> </center>
She takes a deep breath, inhaling her thoughts, and then she lets it go.
When she does, the world comes rushing into roaring color around her. It is dazzling in its kaleidoscope of sensations as everything comes into stark reality—and when she opens her eyes, she realizes that she is in the forest. She takes a step forward, testing her weight, and she reaches for the tigress within her before realizing that it is not there. She tries again and there is nothing. No ripple, no shadow of anything.
It is a haunting feeling to be stripped so clean of her other self.
But she remembers her words, remembers the weight of them, and she does not dwell for long on it. Not when there is so much to do. So she grits her teeth and turns into the forest and gets to work.
She hunts the shifters. At first, the large cats because they are what she knows best (even though their very presence makes her ache). She finds the other tigers, the mountain lions, the jaguars. She even finds the panther of Hyaline who had ripped her to shreds in a war from another time. She draws them forth on a promise of a new world order; of a dream where the kingdoms were not ones with borders and ranks and the silly notions of this world but where power flowed from something deeper, something primal.
When her pack has grown in size, she turns her attention to the other shifters. Those of the air, those of the sea, and others of the land. Sochi recruits Risk, a shifter of many skins and uses him to find others like him. She pulls them into the nucleus of her growing family and lets them settle into natural order.
(She does not invite the dragons, does not entertain the notion of it.)
Finally, when they are large enough, a roaming pack of them, she begins to direct them toward the kingdoms. The attacks are small, at first. Raids in the middle of the night. Some to steal away those who do not fight. Some to destroy the markers on borders, as if sending a message. Some simply to rankle the residents and remind them of their power. But the fights are not as effective as the whispers.
The whispers of the pack who roams without law.
The pack that does not abide by political notions or alliances. They are rogues. They are wild. They are led by the silver-eyed mare but she does not direct their every move or order them into things they do not wish. There is an understanding of the natural law. The strong survive. The weak do not. She does not ignore such truths and she does not pretend that they do not exist. It is the way of the world, after all.
In time, the weakest kingdoms crumble.
Some of the larger kingdoms hold on, but they recognize the strength of the pack and do not interfere. They do not press their ideologies into the wild animals and, in turn, Sochi leaves them alone.
The ideas spread and other, small groups spring up. Some, like herds, are peaceful gatherings of prey—and although they are not immune to the hunting of the pack, they are not an immediate target. Others are packs of competition. In some cases, they cross paths and battles break out, but they are never more than a good, clean fight between predators over food and territory and other such primitive things. They are always solved with bloodshed, and there is never any dispute about which pack rises the strongest.
Sochi often leads the charge in such fights.
And, when she does not fight, she revels in the freedom afforded to her in this world.
She mourns, sometimes, the loss of the tiger within her. She mourns the family that she had built on the bedrock of the old world. She mourns the woman that she had once become.
But she wakes and shakes the dreadlocked mane across her neck. She looks at the silvery scars that spiderweb across her equine form and watches the pack as they hunt, as they feast, as they rest.
And she knows that she has carved out a place in this world free of laws once thought writ in stone.
</p> <p class="sochi2_quote">she said a war ain't a war before both sides bleed</p> </div> </div> </center>
![[Image: sochi.png]](https://i.postimg.cc/rs3xFJR0/sochi.png)
I was less than graceful, I was not kind
be out watching other lovers lose their spine