The frown is so uncharacteristic on his face that she might have frowned right back at him if not for the way his confession had the very opposite effect on her. Her delicate face goes very still, no sign of movement in a mouth that now aches to smirk at him at the realization that this man has such specific magic. “The baby version of animals.” She repeats, and even despite her best efforts, there is laughter dancing in the backs of those pale blue eyes as she works hard again to rein in her amusement. “A very useful skill, I’m sure.” And then, much to her horror, there is nothing she can do to stop that flash of wolfish smile from dancing across her lips - a look of genuine delight and mingled affection.
It’s very good that his next idea is something so profoundly terrible that it wipes the laughter clear off of her face. “And if I don’t?” She asks, wariness like armor she cannot help but to draw up around herself. She doesn’t mean for her tone to sound so suddenly sharp, but his request is something that untethers old, buried fears from someplace deep inside her chest.
Until -
Until she notices the softness in those wide brown eyes, the smile in his voice when he tells her he wouldn’t mind if she nuzzled him again. She blinks, blinks again, and then lets her gaze drop to some meaningless place in the forest beside them while her thoughts unravel like falling raindrops. The easiest thing would be to just turn and leave and make herself forget about him. He couldn’t possibly understand what a request it was for her to change to her born-form for him - as far as she knew, her mother had been the last one to see her that way, and her mother had left her behind.
She stands suddenly, feeling like escape is the only real answer here. But then he stands too, shifting back into that body she had first seen him in, and that undeniable gravity feels like tether stretched between them. She frowns, and if he is clever he will notice that there is some kind of pain in her eyes when they land against his so briefly. But then she takes a breath and hardens her face, and reaches for a magic that feels unfamiliar now.
She shifts without a word, and as a horse she is just as small and unremarkable as she’d always imagined, something slight and refined and plain except for perhaps the transparent horn glittering iridescent from her forehead. It was longer than she remembered, and heavier. As a girl it had been a short, blunt nub. But now it was a long spire with a point that glittered as sharp as any canine tooth. She swings her face back to lock her gaze on Tamlin, and there is something defensive in her gaze, something like a challenge as she dares him to be disappointed by this black and pale blue unicorn. To leave as her own mother had.
She doesn’t mean to let her gaze drift back to his soft, gossamer wings, doesn’t mean to remember his invitation from moments ago that she could touch him again if she wanted. Her breath catches but she doesn’t move closer - doesn’t move at all except to flick her ears uncertainly. “Well?” She asks, and her voice in this form is something less harsh, less growl than her wolf. “Am I what you were expecting?”
the devil in my arms said feed me to the wolves tonight