[open] And they lived happily ever after, The End. / Lepis /

[Wolfbane]

Would you help me to carry the stone?

Open your heart, I'm coming home.

“And then what?” A little gray pony asked her companions, two much larger but less-refined pegasus mares.
“Well nothing, that’s what!” One of the pegasi replied, fluttering her wings ever-so-gently with excitement. The conspiratorial air surrounding their conversation was tangible, even to Wolfbane who listened rapturously nearby. He’d shape-shifted into a slender snake when the gaggle of talkative females had first arrived - intent on making an invisible escape - but their conversation had taken a suddenly interesting turn, so he’d coiled up and stayed instead. Now the venomous predator lay in wait, patiently flicking his tongue like one taps their toes or bounces their knee to pass time.

“The monster vanished, apparently. If you ask me, I doubt there was one to begin with.” The other winged mare spoke up dully, and gave her flying friend a sarcastic look. “You know how word-of-mouth goes around here.” She rolled her eyes and took a breath. “The imagination some horses have, I swear. You’re spreading a children’s bedtime story, Lala.” She chided the first pegasus, who offensively turned her ears down at the accusation.

“Well I thought it was a terribly exciting children’s story anyways, even if there wasn’t an ending.” Bane heard the pewter-gray pony consoling her friend as he unfurled and began to slither away through the grass, “Who’s to say what’s real? I heard there are creatures from hell roaming the Waste - Pangea. Horses born from dark rituals…” Her voice teetered off into silence; Wolfbane had gotten far enough away that he couldn’t hear them anymore.

Now that he was out of earshot, the beast rose up from the ground. He stretched himself out of the snakeskin, shifting and molting the old body for a new one that suited him better, then took a breath with his newly-formed lungs. It felt good to sigh and breath through a muzzle after so much time hiding as another animal. The trickery of disappearing into thin air was a hard one to maintain, especially when all Wolfbane really wanted to do was kill. “To spill blood and have thine own blood spilt.” He thought to himself poetically, then unfurled his overly large white wings and launched himself into the sky.

Less than a few hours later he was descending to land in Loess, reaching out with his blue-striped legs to touchdown and perch at the peak of a red-orange butte. The story shared between the three mares still echoed in his mind as he teetered cautiously above the Loessian flatlands, and their words were like the wind picking apart his tail: “monster”, “story”, and “doubt” all brushed over his skin as gentle as lover’s kisses, harmless.

What bothered him was the lack of an ending.

The shapeshifter growled under his breath and flexed his shoulders, causing both his wings to flare. Irritation and resolution alike nettled him, and the voices which had long ago drowned out his own consciousness began their chattering whispers back-and-forth through his mind. They goaded him on with vicious lies until Bane could feel his blood boiling under his ever-changing skin. He snarled with a mouthful of newly-sharpened teeth and roared deep from his chest until the sound echoed far beyond where he was, into the furthest corners of a kingdom he’d once had the pleasure of ruling.

Come, he threatened the quiet valleys and the sleeping saguaro. Come, he threatened @[Lepis] and any horse who would separate them, let’s give them something to talk about.

Mood: Dangerous