[open] you just want to make this worse; any

[Anath]

all these voices in my head get loud
i wish that i could shut them out
i'm sorry that i let you down

The belief that she was going to come to Hyaline to grow up playing with Malik and enjoying adventures was born when she gazed down at the lake and died shortly after. Her conversation with Mazikeen had been brief and direct. Anath will be removed from Hyaline by the spring if she cannot not make or prove herself worthy of remaining. Fall is quickly fading and Anath wakes every morning to fewer leaves on the trees and fewer hopes in her small heart. She does not forget for a moment that she will be expelled and spends any free time she has trying to discover a means of staying.

She knows she is not about to bloom into an angel or shift into a wildcat.

Another morning comes long after she has anxiously woken. For many hours she has lain awake in the dark but at last sunlight spills in over the lake, changing its color before her eyes. Anath leaps to her feet, leaving behind her bed of leaves to trot down to the water. Anath is thirsty and slows near the edge while lowering her head but snorts when she sees the silt clouded shadows. Someone has wandered or run along the lake edge recently, Anath is not interested in sipping the gritty spoiled water they have left behind and steps into the water to get a clearer drink.

Sunlight reflects on the lake, catching her attention. Raising her head, her muzzle dripping, she focuses her green eyes on the sharp glimmer. The lake’s gently moving surface changes before her eyes, not truly, but in her perception alone to be more like an expanse of transparent sand. Lifting a hoof she settles it upon the place she’d been watching. It is solid, not like hard earth but with a give, like sand? No. Like something alive, ever in motion. Anath raises another hoof and it joins the first. She steadies herself against the subtle movement, and against the excited pounding of her heart, and then bounds up so that all four of her feet are upon, no above, the surface of the water. She has changed the sunlight reflecting upon the water, and made it something she can stand upon. Her white tipped tail flicks with gleeful anxiety and she tentatively feels ahead of her herself. At first there is nothing ahead of her, just water and a pending tumble into the lake. The filly tries again, her pale hoof connects with the light mirrored on the surface this time. Water dripping from her fetlocks evaporates when it lands. 

Ecstatic giggles tumble away across the surface of the lake and Anath grows bolder, pacing out away from the shore until there is water all around her. She can go anywhere the light touches, the task of making the sunlight support her hooves hardly requiring thought. If she could show this to someone what would they say? Not enough. Whispers a voice in her head. This is not enough. Anath’s stomach aches, though it is empty it feels full of stones. Anath walks in a circle, peers down at the clear deep, the logs and pretty rocks far below. Then up, out toward the shore, the trees, the meadows and the creatures that move among them. Only she is here, out here standing above the water, and still she is not as alone as she will be when she must leave Hyaline.

anath

let you down

@Any

[Cassiell]

Dawn came upon the land slowly, golden tongues of light devouring the last remaining vestiges of the night. And with it came a dark angel on raven wings, soaring far above the shifting terrain which unfurled below as had become his wont of late. Each day saw his explorations ranging a little further out and the map he was charting within his mind's eye became that much fuller, more detailed. Each night saw him returning to the far more familiar embrace of the "common lands" -- the forest in particular where he had landed that first night within Beqanna and met that golden beauty deep within the shadows of the trees.

Beqanna. The land of his sire. A land which called to him just as surely as a siren called to her latest victim, its sweet song shivering through his blood. And yet it had been but a name to him all of his life -- a weak collection of myths and legends, uttered from the velveteen lips of his dam when he was but a colt. But now it was far more. Now, it was a reality. A reality he could touch, taste, and --

The glint of gold reflecting upon silver flashed far below, catching the molten gaze of the brute as he surged through the sky like an oversized carrion bird. He had been "mapping" this territory all morning, eyes of golden ore studying the autumn-tinged forests, the craggy outcroppings, and of course, this lake which dominated the very center. Though this was his third pass, this was the first time he had spied movement down below. The movement of another. A very small other.

Expelling his breath on a huff, the brute began to descend slowly, his wings carrying him in an arcing path which saw him circling about at this other's back, perhaps out of their direct line of sight. Though he possessed no magic which might mask his reflection in those crystalline depths of the lake in question. Magic. He smelled it now that the land which had once been but a patchwork below him was now rising up to greet his massive frame. It was a scent he was becoming more and more familiar with since his short stay in Beqanna so far. It was a scent that reeked of otherness and left a metallic tang on his tongue.

It was a scent which flirted about the petite stature of the little filly as he drew close enough to observe that she was, in fact, walking on water. But no. Not the water. The light shimmering just above it. Ebony ears momentarily pinning to his skull, the stallion hovered there in the air at her back while he watched, his golden eyes fixated upon the foal as he lingered just far enough away that the chill wind kicked up by his wings would not disturb her. Seconds ticked into moments. Moments into minutes.

Eyelids lowering just enough to see his molten gaze half-hooded, the stud finally touched down within the lake, sending the cool, clear water rippling toward the filly as his tarnished hooves sank into the rocks and mud below the surface. He was a stranger here. An intruder. Unbeknownst to him, the magic that tainted this land was sending out an alarm to all the residents, alerting them to his presence at this very moment.

He would have landed even had he known. Probably sooner, in fact, just to test how quickly said residents responded to potential threats.

When he spoke at last, it was to see the deep rumble of his baritone skipping across the surface of the lake like a stone to greet the gold-tinged foal with an utterance of: "That is quite interesting." Letting the words linger for but a moment, punctuated by the rustle of his dark wings as he tucked them against the expanse of his scarred torso, the brute then continued with a question of, "Something you inherited from your dam? Your sire? Or something you picked up elsewhere?" No hint of curiosity tinged his tone. In fact, he might as well have been remarking upon the weather for all the dullness woven throughout the rise and fall of each word. But his eyes? His eyes betrayed him with their molten intensity.

cassiell

temperance is a virtue

Dark Pegasus by Tatiana Yamshanova used with permission.

@Anath

[bolder]

Bolder had been at the bottom of the lake.

He had been practicing again, turning and diving through the depths of the murky waters as a tawny-colored Orca. The young shifter wasn't sure why he preferred this shape so much. He could try to become a fish, like the smaller trout he had seen gleaming in sunlight near the surface. There were eels and other creatures that lurked beneath the detritus at the lake bottom.

But much like he takes the shape of a wolf when he prowls when walks on land, Bolder enjoys the orca in water.

What he spies from the shadows below is light on the surface. But it doesn't break as it normally does - dancing in tendrils beneath the waves - but rather intensifies in a way that he has never seen before. The floating creature watches from beneath as the light pools together, as it moves away from the shore and towards the heart of the lake. Bolder drifts up, following the curious illusion as it dances across the top of the water. He skims below it, turning on his side so that one silver eye glances upward towards the surface. Bolder continues this, lingering in the shadows enough to remain hidden (apart from his white markings that might reflect the light above).

His fluid motions in the water stops, when a jarring sound physically forces him to abruptly halt his swimming. Bolder has become familiar with it over the almost year that he has been in Hyaline, and the alarm in his mind alerts him that an intruder is nearby. The russet-and-white while dives down, before propelling himself out of the darkness to raise his massive head against the rippling surface of the lake. He remains above the water for a moment, turning to look briefly at the filly walking on the lake. Bolder has seen her with his younger cousin, Malik, and a few times near the part of the woods where his grandmother lives.

The orca then watches the dark pegasus nearby, before he slips beneath the waves.

A few moments later, a soaking adolescent steps out of them. He shakes his moon-marked head and his bristled (and usually upright) mane hangs damply against his neck. Flaring his russet wings, Bolder attempts to remove the water dripping from them and address the stranger. "What are you doing here?" Bolder addresses the older stallion, while keeping a careful eye on the gold sabino filly, after he is done asking his own questions. "Nobody is supposed to come this far into Hyaline uninvited."

@Anath @Cassiell hope you don't mind his naked html; just your neighborhood watch orca checking things out

[Anath]

all these voices in my head get loud
i wish that i could shut them out
i'm sorry that i let you down

Anath is very young, but her position in Hyaline does not allow her room to be wholly innocent. Supposing there are any truly innocent children among these mountains. Even though she has not yet learned any reason why she should be wary here, the girl is cautious of nearly all the adults in the East. This is perhaps why she senses the black pegasus, not immediately, but before he lands in the jewel of Hyaline over which she stands.

Her thoughts have turned melancholy. Bolder swims beneath her in the cold snow-melt fed lake, but she does not notice him. With her green eyes trained on the shore she feels a sinking grip in her chest, the kind of anxiety that twists in her when she is forced to be too near one of the adult shifters. Morning sunlight warms the child’s dark back, and her little ears twitch to catch the first audible sweep of wings before the stranger lands in the nearby shallows.

Massive hooves and heavy limbs disturb the surface, and Anath must  sidestep away from the ripples that roll out across the glittering surface. She will need more practice to navigate such disturbances. From above her golden cheekbones Anath’s green eyes flash up from the water and into the face of the huge pegasus. Her’s is a bold stare. That is quite interesting. States the massive stallion, she understands what he is referring to but not why he says it. Anath keeps her gift to herself around the adult shifters, they are not impressed by her light, but the stranger’s words tease out a little bit of her pride. She arches her neck, short ebony tipped mane standing straight. When he speaks again, her green eyes go from brazen to hard. Whatever curiosity she had been feeling in turn dies away. “I do not have parents.” The filly’s small voice has a steely quality, respectful but only just. “You ask strange questions for an adult. I am of no importance.” The only distinction she carries is being the playmate of a prince. She continues after a breath, “I don’t think you are supposed to be here.”

Bolder joins them, the older boy has been in the water below she now realizes. Anath frowns, not at Bolder, but at herself, and returns her gaze to the stallion. The chestnut colt does not recognize the stallion either, confirming her suspicions that he is a trespasser. In that moment she decides, in a tiny rebellion, to give the stranger what he seems to want. “He just has questions. Can you tell him where your shifting comes from?” She says kindly, looking the boy in his crescent-marked face. On the water between her four feet, the reflection of sunlight gathers, glittering.

anath

let you down

@Cassiell @bolder

[Cassiell]

Normally, Cassiell was a more cautious sort -- the sort to watch and wait rather than simply crash into the shallows of a lake in the very heart of unknown territory. He wasn't a creature of whims. And yet here he was, having done just that, drawn here into this moment by the shimmering of the delicate filly before him as she stood there atop her tendrils of light.

These golden sabinos were going to be the death of him.

Intense, molten eyes catching against her green, he watched with an impassive sort of interest when he saw her own gaze harden. His ears flicked forward to catch her tone. 'I do not have parents,' she said, but what he heard was, 'No one wants me.' Of course, she could have meant for her words to be taken quite literally. Perhaps in this strange land that was laced through with the ever-present tang of magic, some foals simply came into being rather than being born in the traditional sense. Honestly, at this point, nothing would surprise him.

Not even the sight of an orca of all things bobbing up to the surface there in the middle of this crystalline lake. He hadn't noticed the creature before, but he definitely noticed it now. Its sudden appearance was enough to drag his gaze away from the petite femme and her light, to see his golden eyes fixating upon the oddly colored whale instead. There was something about it that seemed... off, beyond the fact that it shouldn't be here in the first place, of course. His suspicions were soon confirmed when the creature disappeared from sight to then be replaced by a little colt, dripping water and looking none too pleased to see him.

A single flick from one of his ears was the only outward sign of his mild surprise to the sudden change in the young one's appearance. Given the filly's own blase reaction, he could only assume that this was a perfectly normal sort of occurrence here. What an odd place.

At the colt's demanding sort of question, the scarred stallion was brought back to the here and now, though, and his gaze burned through the russet-hued youngling as he looked down upon him. The other's protective demeanor was cute, almost to the point of being endearing. Almost. But as it was, a faint smirk ghosted across the edge of the brute's velveteen lips at the sight of it all before he rumbled forth a perhaps not-so-reassuring reassurance of: "Worry not, young one, I was just passing by when I noticed this one and decided to drop down to say hello." He nodded toward the filly with those words before he further added in his dark baritone to the young shapeshifter, "But I mean you no harm."

It was a truthful enough statement, though only the gods knew if the little ones would believe him. He had no designs on posing a threat to anyone on this day. Besides trying to crush the foals -- which would be a supreme waste of potential if anyone bothered to ask him -- what could he do? Try to steal them? He had no lands to take them to. No alternative home to offer. But if he did... again, his eyes of molten ore shifted toward the gold sabino with her hard, emerald gaze and spicy, little spirit. If he had a place for her, there was one he would want. Without hesitation.

Alas.

When the filly spoke, declaring that he himself simply had questions, his former smirk returned to his muzzle with ease and he bobbed his great skull in response. "Indeed, she has the right of it," he agreed in his rumbling way, his voice like dark thunder roiling forth from deep within his chest with each word spoken. "I come from a land where magic is not so commonplace. It is all rather curious to me, your abilities." Though the majority of his little speech had been addressed toward the russet colt, his eyes found the filly again soon enough when he added for her in a slightly softer near-purr: "Though I would disagree with you on one point. The one where you said you were of no importance." Canting his head ever-so-slightly to the side, the midnight pegasus observed with all the quiet confidence of a truly self-assured individual, "Everyone has the potential to be someone important. And I see such potential burning inside of you, little one."

cassiell

temperance is a virtue

Dark Pegasus by Tatiana Yamshanova used with permission.

@Anath @bolder

[bolder]

Bolder should, perhaps, feel a bit of caution where it regards the older pegasus. The dark stallion is much bigger than he his, with wider wings and hard muscles with several scars to match them. Despite his young age, even the adolescent shifter can recognize him as a fighter. But his silver eyes hold a glaring edge as they regard the taller brute, because Bolder is young and this is his home.

This is the only place he has ever felt truly accepted for what he was; he had been born a shifter and his father had tried to restrain him to one shape.

Only Gale and Mazikeen had encouraged him to take more. They had taught and nurtured his gift, allowing him to grow with it instead of fighting against it. They taught him how to seamlessly go from one shape to another, though Bolder uses that craft to only grow slightly taller and broaden his chest. He does this while wishing that he could shift into the creature that Uncle Gale had shown him - the magical liopluerodon - because he doubted that any horse would stay long in Hyaline after seeing that shape.

He keeps coming closer to the winged horse, hoping that the other would move away. That he would leave.

He just has questions, Anath tells him and Bolder's copper ears flick into the fine bristles of his upright mane. It didn't matter. He wasn't supposed to be here.

"Can you drop down as a bird?" the young shifter asks. Gale had told him - cut away the piece of his soul that might have felt some compassion for this stranger - that those who couldn't were considered less powerful, were weaker than the residents of Hyaline (save for those invited here, like Malik's friend), and weren't permitted within their borders. Mazikeen had said much the same as well. His gaze narrows back on the older male, deciding to answer the question.

It might help move the onyx pegasus along.

"It's in my blood," Bolder tells them both, "My grandfather was a great shapeshifter." There is pride in his voice, lifting his head as it regards the two other horses. It's a part of his history that he had never been taught, just one more thing that his Uncle had given him that his father had denied.

The other beast comes from a land where Magic doesn't run rampant. For a moment, Bolder tries to imagine what this looks like. He hadn't known other shifters when he had been small - most likely banished from the North - but he had known the shadow-walkers of Taiga, had played games with his cousins who could feel and see their world in ways that he couldn't. There has always been some aspect of his Magic present in his life, and Bolder finds that any land might lack it odd.

But not odd enough that his eyes don't turn to black, not odd enough that his copper coat slowly turns the crimson shade of blood; the color from the animal he had killed with Mazikeen. Not enough that his teeth don't sharpen, becoming pointed towards the intruder and clack together with a warning.

Of course Anath was important, he thinks instead. She was Malik's pet, like a companion animal. She was to stay, while this stranger his black glare blatantly says, this stranger was to go.

@Anath @Cassiell