03-14-2021, 08:15 PM
She finds him as a panther, staring up at a sky that, to her, looks entirely empty. There is no color, no stars or birds or even clouds, the only thing up there is that strangled halo of light like a broken promise. A sky and a moon frozen in a moment of time that no one seemed able to change. Not for the first time she finds herself wondering how there wasn’t someone here who could fix this, that out of all the gifts in the entire population, not one could pull apart the sky and make things bright again.
The night is cold - or maybe it is day now, she isn’t sure - and she nearly turns away from him to go home and find some warmth and shelter with her family. But then he closes his eyes and it stalls the movement in her paws for a moment longer as she wonders if that simple gesture comes from stupidity or exhaustion or a blind faith she cannot fathom. This is not a world where you can stand alone in the middle of a meadow and close your eyes anymore. This world has teeth and claws and a new kind of hunger that never seems sated.
Maybe he’s hurt though, she thinks, wonders, lets that thread of worry wind itself into a knot inside her chest. But her panther eyes roam his silhouette, and she scents the air between them for a hint of the metallic promise of an open wound. There is nothing, though.
She watches a moment longer, then she lets her own gaze wander back up to the sky as though she’s searching for an explanation. There is none, of course, and so her gaze falls back down upon him with a new kind of studied curiosity. She considers startling him, telling him that if she were a true panther, feral and hungry in this dying world, that she almost certainly would’ve had him by the throat before he realized he needed to open his eyes again.
But she hates that new bitterness that sometimes rises in her now, that jaded frustration at being trapped beneath a sky intent on smothering her. She is always exhausted, always drowning in the dark in a way that only her own father can understand. But it isn’t this man's fault, and so she frowns and bites her tongue to sheath the blade of her words.
Instead she shifts to her true form, her limbs elongating, the color fading in places to a pale gold until she is once again a buckskin and white pegasus. She joins him quietly, having decided this form would likely be received better than that of her glowing-eyed panther, and fixes her quiet, plasma-ringed eyes on him. “What were you looking at before you closed your eyes?”
The night is cold - or maybe it is day now, she isn’t sure - and she nearly turns away from him to go home and find some warmth and shelter with her family. But then he closes his eyes and it stalls the movement in her paws for a moment longer as she wonders if that simple gesture comes from stupidity or exhaustion or a blind faith she cannot fathom. This is not a world where you can stand alone in the middle of a meadow and close your eyes anymore. This world has teeth and claws and a new kind of hunger that never seems sated.
Maybe he’s hurt though, she thinks, wonders, lets that thread of worry wind itself into a knot inside her chest. But her panther eyes roam his silhouette, and she scents the air between them for a hint of the metallic promise of an open wound. There is nothing, though.
She watches a moment longer, then she lets her own gaze wander back up to the sky as though she’s searching for an explanation. There is none, of course, and so her gaze falls back down upon him with a new kind of studied curiosity. She considers startling him, telling him that if she were a true panther, feral and hungry in this dying world, that she almost certainly would’ve had him by the throat before he realized he needed to open his eyes again.
But she hates that new bitterness that sometimes rises in her now, that jaded frustration at being trapped beneath a sky intent on smothering her. She is always exhausted, always drowning in the dark in a way that only her own father can understand. But it isn’t this man's fault, and so she frowns and bites her tongue to sheath the blade of her words.
Instead she shifts to her true form, her limbs elongating, the color fading in places to a pale gold until she is once again a buckskin and white pegasus. She joins him quietly, having decided this form would likely be received better than that of her glowing-eyed panther, and fixes her quiet, plasma-ringed eyes on him. “What were you looking at before you closed your eyes?”
aureline
dear wilderness, be at your best
her armor is thin as the fabric of her dress
@[Ten]