05-11-2023, 03:37 PM
The winter night is still and nearly silent. No wind disturbs the leafless black canopy overhead, and every crunch of Malik’s feet as he runs across the snow’s icy crust seems to echo off the trunks that crowd around him. Tonight he wears the shape of a snowshoe hare
Usually the dark haired shifter prefers a predatory form, but he had been too often outrun by a wide footed hare to not wonder at how they floated across the top of the snow that swallowed his heavier feet. It had taken him quite a while to learn the shape, but that is how he spends his time of late: learning new shapes.
Along with the wide feet that carry him so swiftly across the deep snow comes the fear of an animal at the base of the food chain. A shadow overhead might be an owl, or the dark sharp to his left a crouching fox. Malik’s dark ears (black and faintly striped, as his fur is in every shape he takes) flick hurriedly this way and that, and when he pulls to a stop he can feel his heart beating rapidly within his chest.
A moment of concentration later, and he regains his natural shape. Equine, but clearly a native of this magical land with his tined horns, feathered neck and chest, and insubstantial wings that glow with the same dark light as the rest of him. Even the natural predators of horses would hesitate to hunt such a creature, least of all one in his adult prime.
Yet still his heart beats quickly, knowing even as he stares out into the seemingly empty darkness that there are still monsters that hunt his kind.
@Vital
Usually the dark haired shifter prefers a predatory form, but he had been too often outrun by a wide footed hare to not wonder at how they floated across the top of the snow that swallowed his heavier feet. It had taken him quite a while to learn the shape, but that is how he spends his time of late: learning new shapes.
Along with the wide feet that carry him so swiftly across the deep snow comes the fear of an animal at the base of the food chain. A shadow overhead might be an owl, or the dark sharp to his left a crouching fox. Malik’s dark ears (black and faintly striped, as his fur is in every shape he takes) flick hurriedly this way and that, and when he pulls to a stop he can feel his heart beating rapidly within his chest.
A moment of concentration later, and he regains his natural shape. Equine, but clearly a native of this magical land with his tined horns, feathered neck and chest, and insubstantial wings that glow with the same dark light as the rest of him. Even the natural predators of horses would hesitate to hunt such a creature, least of all one in his adult prime.
Yet still his heart beats quickly, knowing even as he stares out into the seemingly empty darkness that there are still monsters that hunt his kind.
@Vital