"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
Sickle had not been brave enough to go home with Malik that day they had met. She had retreated from her fears, finding solace with Asterope - staying with her pond-bound friend until she began to worry that she was being intrusive.
The ground had trembled but it was days and days later when she finally went to investigate - stunned to find that the Pampas no longer existed. She had dove into the water, finding the remnants of the flower fields - those blossoms long dead, drowned and suffocated.
She could not say she would miss that place, but she fretted over the fates of her friends. Time stretched and she had been so lost herself that she did not even know where to begin looking.
Except for one place. Where her family lived, the family that she didn’t really know and who didn’t know her. Her brother and her sister, at the very least, she wanted to know were safe.
Even if it was long since the earthquake, even if anything and everything could have happened between now and then, Sickle’s uncertainty needed an answer.
Which is what brought her here, to the foothills outside Hyaline. Farther than she’s managed to get and she berates herself for her cowardice. They are only mountains, it’s only just another land inside. It does not house the same nightmares, Malik had told her, but her fear is the only consistent thing she has known in her life and it is not so easily shed.
In the early morning light, Oceanus circles overhead and in her agitation the brindling on her coat flickers with the colour of his fire, bright blues flashing here and there. She frowns at the mountains as she stands there - as though remaining still will reveal a path that she cannot currently see (or does not want to see).
01-25-2022, 08:19 PM (This post was last modified: 01-25-2022, 08:22 PM by bolder.)
He had gotten into something the night before. The gold-striped pegasus was sure of it. His head was pounding horribly, and no matter what he did, he couldn’t shake the sluggish feeling of sleep from his limbs.
Bolder had been in Tephra (again). He remembered that much. There had been some sweet fruits that he had been urged to try by a pretty companion, and rather strange looking flowers. But that was where his memory grew hazy. The young mare he had been courting finally gave Bolder her name, which he now had trouble recalling in the practically-blinding morning light above him. They had moved on to other ways of getting better acquainted, and the maturing shapeshifter had certainly enjoyed her company.
The golden girl from Tephra (even if she giggled a little more than he was used to), he wouldn’t mind finding again. The purple-and-red berries, the flowers with yellow stripes, he learned, were best avoided.
Making his way back to Hyaline, Bolder was careful to stay beneath the tree canopy. He moved at a leisurely pace, as quick as his body would currently allow him to go. Deciding that his wings were too much effort, they shifted away in a few blinks of an eye, leaving only a chestnut horse with gold stripes and an upright mane. Nothing too unusual, but there was a certain confidence in his gait. No harm would come to him - not even while he moved so slow - when he could simply shift himself out of any situation.
And in a world where Bolder has learned to fear little, the sight of a circling blue bird (if he had a clearer view, he might have recognized Oceanus) in the distance quickly prompts him into curiosity. His stomach still feels too sour for a meal, but as he silently stalks the creature from the ground, he thought that a few of the blue feathers might make a good gift for Viszla, or perhaps his newest cousin, if they had arrived. He shifted then, disappearing beneath thick brambles, and emerged as a copper-colored mountain lion.
How to get the creature to land? Trade this skin for something suited for the sky?
Climbing up the trunk of one tree, Bolder moved carefully from one thick branch to another, and then another until they grew more sparse. The foothills of Hyaline - and the purple peaks of her mountains - loomed ahead. He was still eyeing the bird above, attempting to come closer while he still (blearily) tried to form a plan. Something about the raptor was familiar, and it nagged at the back of mind.
It nagged enough that it made Bolder pause, and while briefly glancing down, he was met with surprise. "Sickle?” the large cat growled out, unable to conceal his shock at seeing this former playmate.
Sickle has none of the honed instincts from either her birth or adoptive family. She does not consider keeping an eye on her surroundings, just in case there are things lurking there she should avoid. Just in case she should be ready to run. There is enough confidence in her combined ability to heal and shift that it seems to override any sense.
She has spent a long time in shadows, ghosting through the world as she grew into a mare, that she sometimes simply assumes everyone will continue to pass her by.
So she jumps when she hears her name, surprise causing the nearby colours to flicker across her iridescent coat - greens and browns and the soft purple of the mountains. She looks up into the eyes of the mountain lion standing in the trees and remembers the boy who had named her companion. “Oh right.” She had forgotten that Bolder lived in Hyaline too - forgotten that she had left him and his search for his shadow as soon as that information had been given to her because she had felt it press down on her. That instinct of hers to freeze and shrink and curl in on herself whenever emotions were just too big to handle.
Sickle shifts her stance a little, clearly uncomfortable, looking from the lion to the mountains beyond.
Her mismatched eyes remain fixed on the cliffs when she ignores the opportunity for a proper greeting and instead asks quietly. “Did you know Malik is my twin brother?” Sickle doesn’t think he had known when they had met - maybe he would have referred to Mazikeen as her mother instead of his aunt if he did. Maybe he would have breached the subject of her brother when she had been too scared to. He probably would have asked why she didn’t live with the rest of her “family”.
Her face twists a little bit with the realization that this means Bolder is family too. The entire mountain could be filled with relatives by now.
02-09-2022, 03:54 PM (This post was last modified: 02-09-2022, 04:01 PM by bolder.)
His feline head tilts curiously at the unusual greeting, as if she was surprised to find him here. He had told her once that Hyaline was home, and though Bolder wanders often, he is never truly gone for long. Sinking his claws into the bark of the three, he stood and then stretched, languishing in that shape for a moment longer before he began to make his way down to the ground.
When there were only a few branches left, he leapt the remaining feet from the ground and let the wings he had been born with coast him the rest of the way. He lands close by, near enough to hear her next words. If Malik was her brother, that meant Myrna was her sister as well. It meant that they were all related, and she had even more cousins waiting within in Hyaline.
Did she know that?
She looks uncomfortable, and so Bolder takes the intensity of his stare away, turning it towards the mountains instead, hoping she might relax. His copper nostrils flared at the sight before them, inhaling the scent of wisteria and shortgrass in summer. ”Did you know that makes us cousins then?” Bolder asked her in return and the beginning of a smile curled against his dark mouth, wondering what the girl who had scurried with him from branch to branch chasing shadows as a squirrel would make of that. She had left so quickly that day, and now as he returned to look back at the purple mountains ahead, he wondered if it was his mention of Hyaline that had chased her away.
Hyaline had been the only place that Bolder had felt truly accepted. It was where he grew to his full potential.
It was home to the Pack.
Why would Sickle - a talented shifter herself - avoid it?
Despite her nerves and discomfort, Sickle can’t help the way her eyes roll a little at his responding question and a small smile tugs at the corner of her mouth. “Yes, duh.” She had figured that out pretty quick as soon as she had been told Mazikeen was her mother. It hadn’t been at the top of the things she had thought about but, eventually, when her mind had quieted a little bit she had remembered a fellow shapeshifter that told her who his aunt was.
The smile fades though, and she looks quickly away as her unease rises back through her. She’s not really sure what to say now - she’d thought Bolder might have been a little more surprised.
But maybe he, like everyone else, knew her parentage before she did.
“I don’t…” Sickle keeps her attention forward, the foothills and slopes and the long journey it’s sure to be to cross through it all. “I don’t want to be their daughter.” She admits, and she thinks it’s the first time she’s said it out loud. She wants nothing to do with either Gale or Mazikeen, she wants to go back to the life where she and Malik and Wishbone had lived in peace in Tephra.
But that time is getting farther and farther away - it was such a small moment, really. That little blip of peace right at the beginning.
A frown deepens across Sickle’s features for a moment before a happier thought worms its way in, brightening her gaze a little and now she finally turns to Bolder - frightened and filled with such hope. “But I hear I have a sister.”
02-15-2022, 10:52 AM (This post was last modified: 02-15-2022, 10:53 AM by bolder.)
Bolder moves his gaze back to his cousin’s face, pleased to find the beginning of a smile there. He remembers mentioning it – that he was being tutored in the ways of shapeshifting by his Aunt Mazikeen. There were probably more revelations for Sickle upon learning that the Alpha was her birth mother than realizing her relation to him, but the young Pegasus finds himself glad to see that he hasn’t been entirely forgotten. It makes him even more glad to see the way her tension eases away, even if it lasts only for a moment.
Being a creature that changes often, he follows Sicke’s shift in mood as she glances away, and considers taking a step towards the rounding trail home towards Hyaline. It could be the thing they both need to keep moving forward, but her comment forces Bolder to pause. She didn’t want to be the daughter of either Mazikeen or Gale; a copper ear swivels to the side where she stands and Bolder turns his thick neck to peer at the young mare.
He understands partially where it regards her sire (that hits close to home). Gale had abandoned Hyaline and the Pack years ago to pursue notoriety in Tephra instead. But his Aunt – despite the way she had changed through those years - would always have a defender in her nephew. Contemplating his own beginnings, Bolder turned to look towards the Hyalinean trail ahead. ”My father used to bring to me to your mother when I first began to change.”
The wind whips past them, rustling his auburn feathers lightly and the sun’s rays glinted of his gold stripes. ”He wanted me to learn to control it so that I could hide it.” Briefly, his ears flick back and even the warm tone he uses with Sickle chills for a moment. There is more he might say – even revealing in those early homesick days away from Taiga that he pretended his Aunt and Uncle were actually his parents – but he refrains because Bolder understands what it is like to be born one place and belong in another.
That will have to be something Sickle decides for herself.
”But,” the young stallion speaks again before taking a confident step and then another towards Hyaline, ”You do have a sister.” His voice warms at the mention of the young palomino and finally looking back over his winged shoulder, his expression does as well to see Sickle brightening again. ”Her name is Myrna!” Bolder calls out, leaving the implication (and the trail space beside him) open that he knew more, his newfound cousin only need to ask.
@Sickle this was written at work so if nothing makes sense, im sorry lmao
Was Mazikeen kind to everyone but her? Why did both Bolder and Malik get happier memories with her mother, while Sickle can still remember the terror when she had been plucked off of the soil in the Pampas and the sting of claws as they had pierced her sides. She keeps this sulking thought to herself but mumbles another one. “Sounds like both of our parents suck.” She intends for this to be a sharp remark but the softness doesn’t leave her quiet voice.
Underneath her bitterness, she’s glad Bolder had someone to teach him how to shift, glad he had found a home where he could be himself. Everyone deserved that.
He speaks again, taking a step towards Hyaline and Sickle frowns at him - misunderstanding for a moment and thinking that he was just walking away from her.
Uncertainty flashes greens and browns of their surroundings across her coat again and she lingers at the spot she feels rooted for a long minute before taking a step. The first three are slow, her legs feeling heavier than they ever have - even when she wore the shape of a rhinoceros.
But the ones after come a little easier. And though she is still uncertain and nervous, she draws beside Bolder on the path and asks quietly - “What’s she like?”
He doesn’t often speak of his father. And when he has, it has always been with Mazikeen, as if his Aunt might reveal some insight to Nashua’s lacking that he has never understood. From the beginning, his sire has treated his shifting as some kind of abomination and it had always been Mazikeen that reassured him that his gift was anything but that.
Perhaps Bolder should be more considerate to Sickle, but Mazikeen has been the only constant that he has known in his life.
But then his cousin flashes several colors against her iridescent coat and Bolder is reminded (again) that they all walk different paths in this life. What she knows of her birth-mother is different than what he knows, and as a horse gifted with the ability of flight, there is a part of the young pegasus that understands perspective. It is something that is always different.
"She likes pretty things,” Bolder tells Sickle, and then glances mischievously to the circling bird overhead, "I meant to claim a few of his feathers until I realized who he belonged to.” Until he realized that it was Oceanus, the copper pegasus means. The roguish expression doesn’t entirely leave his handsome face, but it changes when it tilts back to the young mare beside him.
"What about you?” Bolder asks curiously, wondering what (and where) Malik and Myrna’s sister had been all this time. "What do you like?”
When Bolder answers her question, Sickle’s momentarily confused - and then she realizes what happened and laughs softly as she keeps pace with her cousin. “I asked what is she like, not what she likes - dummy.” Teasing him brings her back to her old self a little bit, the one who had existed back in Tephra before her reality had started to splinter. “But that’s good to know she likes pretty things.” Should she bring Myrna a present when she first meets her? It is a thought that had not occurred to Sickle before and it troubles her right up until Bolder asks what she likes.
The young iridescent mare is quiet for a moment, thinking it over - trying to remember the points in her life when she was happy. “I like to swim. My friend… she lives in a pond in the woods and I’ve been staying with her mostly ever since…” Sickle trails off - but she’s not feeling particularly charitable towards Bolder’s image of Mazikeen at the moment so she continues after a pause. “Well, since Mazikeen tried to kidnap me and then the Pampas, where my previous kidnappers were keeping me, drowned.” There’s no bite to her words, however bitter she feels, and though Sickle may have intended on starting out by treating it like she could be casual about this, her voice gets small and she frowns, falling another step behind Bolder so her face is less easy to watch.
It’s so easy for happiness to be fleeting. That moment where she teased Bolder slips away no matter how quickly she tries to scramble her mind back there.
She tries to think of something else that she likes - something to carry them both back to that brief moment where they weren’t talking about their parents or Sickle wasn’t feeling guilty about the weight of her own sadness. But her mind comes up empty and so she remains sullen and silent as she continues to walk behind Bolder.
While Bolder might pride himself on being a talented shifter, he would never claim to be the smartest or brightest of them. Hearing Sickle laugh makes him glad of that; the way she familiarly teases him makes him doubly so. He grins back at her, slowing down so that he can glance back at his newly-learned cousin.
His silver eyes flash playfully, and it extends out to his copper coat. Bolder becomes a wild array of color with reds and golds and yellows ripping across his equine shape, trying to engage Sickle in some of the games that he had played as a young colt. A few years might have passed since he last saw her, and while they have both certainly grown, it didn’t mean Bolder had left behind some of his more immature habits.
Bolder rarely wasted an opportunity to show off, and if it might distract Sickle from some of her growing nerves as they approached Hyaline, all the better. Swinging his tri-colored head forward, he continued to describe Myrna as they moved along. "She’s a shifter, like you and Malik.” Bolder told her, ”and she spends a good deal of time practicing.” There is a surge of pride in his deep voice when he says, "Myrna’s quite good. I almost tripped over her being a log the other day.”
Grinning still, he glances back at Sickle, hoping to see her still smiling.
She had fallen behind him and her voice had grown softer, drawing concern from Bolder. He stopped, drawing his still color-changing wings over his broad back. His lips press together in a line, though he refuses to allow himself to frown. (And there is something about her story that reminds Bolder of his own. He had been taken from Taiga, though that had never bothered him. Sickle had been stolen not once, but twice. His loyalty to his Aunt can’t quite bring himself to accept that Mazikeen was motivated by anything but a desire to reunite with her daughter, but his friendship with Sickle keeps him silent. As for those who stole her a second time, it was fortunate for them they were already drowned. Bolder wouldn’t have allowed them such a simple death.)
Instead, he draws upon what Sickle has said she likes. There is a friend she has in the woods, and they share a pond. "You know,” he tells her, "Hyaline’s lake is very deep.” Bolder stands quiet in the company of his cousin, and the only sound that surrounds them is the wind whispering through the trees. "Have you ever tried swimming as a whale before?” Bolder asks, hoping to draw some of her curiosity back out. ”It’s one of my favorite things to do,” he continues, briefly describing the shape of an Orca. "I could show you later, if you’d like.”
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