[open] i've never fallen from quite this high | anyone

[Pteron]

and since you’re the only one that matters,----------------
----------------tell me: who do i run to?

Pteron takes a step back to give her space to shift, and another as her skin ripples and takes on irregular stripes of black shadows atop a shade of orange he almost recognizes. Asena copies her father’s actions, though her steps are smaller and her pale head tilts with undimmable curiosity.

The shape that Titanya takes on is not an unfamiliar one to either horse. Pteron suspects that it is only because they stand this close that he can tell the feline in front of him from the feline shape his young charge often takes in their sparring lessons. She is a large and imposing creature, and he is grateful that his previous steps back have put a more comfortable distance between himself and the Siberian tiger in front of them.

He is immediately equally grateful for the practice he has had at hiding his distaste for the carnivorous proclivities of some of Beqanna’s residents. He is dubious that the story Titanya tells them had ended the way she’d described, but he is not going to question her on it. Asena might have, were she not busy trying to imagine what her own antlers might look like at three times their size.

“Halcyon invited me here about two years ago,” Pteron answers. “My family, including Asena here, came with me.” The pegasus considers adding more – that he had come to mentor Halcyon and the other young folk in the ways of battle, or something like that, something to ground him here in Ischia – but instead is interrupted by Asena, who inquires: “Do you know Hal? You should, if you don’t. He’s a tiger, just like you!”

@[Titanya]

-- pteron --