Malik travels across the deep snow, leaving no sign at all of his passage as he enters the kingdom of Hyaline. Wearing the shape of a snowshoe hare, the iridescent black shapeshifter is unhampered by the deep snows and midwinter drifts of Hyaline’s high mountains. He reaches a long drop and pauses, leaning back on wide hind feet to survey the distance.
Too far for this shape.
He could become a horse, he knows and then something that could leap it, returning to his natural shape and then assuming another. Or he could try to transition from the hare to something else, a trick he’s never had success with before. In the end, he is something halfway between a snow leopard and a hare as he half-falls down the drop, and is entirely grateful for the darkness that hides that long-eared shape.
He continues to travel as a leopard now, still black, but with glowing spots rather than his usual stripes. Regardless of the shape he wears, Malik rarely bothers to change his natural colors. It is something that he shares with his cousin, which is how he recognizes the coppery Bolder.
“I was a little worried I’d been gone so long that the alarm would sound,” he says, and though his voice is light with good humor, there is some truth to the length of his absence. It had been long, but it had not been permanent, and he is in no small part relieved to find that the protective entity of his second childhood recognizes him still.
@ bolder
 He didn’t go to Tephra this winter, nor its neighboring islands. Bolder cursed the cold, and then begrudgingly accepted it. He kept warm by committing himself to patrols, to move along the borders of Hyaline and keeping an eye for anything unusual (or what unusual might be to a pack of shifters). He keeps changing, shifting into something that can accept the cold better than he can.
But a winter spent as a bear leaves him in a sour mood. They aren’t supposed to stay awake this long. And yet, Bolder spent the entire of the cold months as a lumbering creature that longed for a nap and a cave. (There were respites to this, as Bolder occasionally took trips to Pangea, just to see how the new leader of that territory was faring.)
Despite being a grizzly (and being in a grizzly mood), Malik recognizes him.
The bear grins, something that might terrify another, but not his cousin.
Malik’s voice is bright with humor and it warms Bolder, who had been cold a moment before this. "You’ve been gone so long that I’ve near forgotten what you look like,” the larger creature teases the other one, "Let me get my bearings.” He teases Malik, and then with a shift of shadow and light, the copper beast becomes a horse.
Bolder appears rather pleased with himself, when Malik looks at him. There is a smug grin waiting for his cousin that transforms into something more genuine, a look reserved for those he cares for. "Please tell me you’ve been somewhere warm and tropical,” the striped stallion mutters to the brindled one and then shakes out the shivers settling between his bare shoulders.
@ Malik
The brown bear shows his white teeth and Malik grins in return, though the expression turns into an affectionate and not-so-subtle roll of his eyes at his shifting cousin’s humor and smug expression.
His cousin’s coloring would not be strange on the bears Malik has seen in the Riverlands, Malik thinks, but here in the snowy mountains of Hyaline the rich brown color is nothing at all like the native bears. Has Bolder been patrolling like this all winter, the black stallion wonders? The chestnut has returned now to his equine form, just as Malik ruefully shakes his head.
“No,” he says, “But not bad. I’ve been down on a little island that the flooding of Loess made in the Riverlands. The wind off the new sea is pretty warm and there was never even snow to my knees.” Since the snow on Hyaline’s tallest peaks remains even in the heart of summer, Malik’s idea of what is acceptable winter weather is somewhat skewed.
“I needed some time to get my head straight.” He continues, trusting Bolder to know that he means in the aftermath of his returned memories and the violent encounter with the thing that was once Gale, which he’d confessed after a long afternoon spent swimming through Loess’ canyons. Malik doesn’t elaborate, and instead turns his orange and blue eyes out to look at the mountains around them.
“It’s good to be home.” He says after a moment of silence, and finds that saying the words aloud to Bolder somehow makes them feel more true. He has missed Hyaline, both its soaring peaks and the faces of his family, and he soons turn back to his chestnut cousin with a genuine smile warming his mismatched eyes.
He’d missed Malik this winter. Perhaps it was his recent run-in with his twin brother, Saffron, that had made him so melancholy of late. But Bolder had gotten stuck in his own head, and therefore, had remained stuck as a bear. There hadn’t been his brindled cousin to spar with, or to have a contest of the most creative shift with. Mazikeen had her new daughters to tend to, and with Myrna growing more independent, the young stallion found himself growing more restless.
There had been a few troubles in his mind (mostly revolving around his father), and so it had been much easier to be a bear about it.
Malik hadn’t been somewhere tropical, much to his dismay. But he had found an island with favorable winds and that sounds better than the winters they have both come to know in Hyaline. Never one to stay idle for long, the striped pegasus begins to move, listening while the other pegasus talks about everything that had transpired since their last meeting. There had been a lot to talk about; learning about his Uncle and the curse that had afflicted him had been incredibly hard for Bolder to stomach.
Learning about the first childhood that Malik had was harder (and it made him think of Sickle and her reluctance to return to Hyaline with a new understanding).
"It’s good to have you back,” Bolder says in a voice just as genuine as the look that his cousin gives him. "Do you plan on staying long, or is the wider world calling to you already?"
@ Malik
“I’m going to stay.” He says firmly, and then with a grin adds: “Someone needs to set a good example for the twins, after all.” Malik is only teasing, and it surprises him how easy it is to fall back into old habits. He had been somber for so long, wrapped in his own worries and his solitude. Being back home, even for so short a time, already feels so easy.
Accompanying Bolder along the ridge-trail is just as familiar, and as they walk, Malik can feel a sense of peace returning.
The trees below them are resplendent in their autumn colors, and the black-haired stallion smiles at the sight, and at the distantly glittering lake below them. Somewhere down there is the rest of his family, and the warmth that comes with that knowledge solidifies his decision.
“I’ve been thinking of setting up something like the Pack again, but within Hyaline, to protect it.” The kingdom is no longer divided into war and peace, and while the lack of structure works well for them, Malik has been made all too aware of the dangers of being unprotected. There is also the issue of Nerine’s repeated attempts to take the entity that has protected Hyaline since before Malik was born, but that is diplomacy better left to others.
“Would you want to help me?”
@ bolder
|
![[Image: 37477440_mkk7ul7XODhpdJ7.png]](https://f2.toyhou.se/file/f2-toyhou-se/images/37477440_mkk7ul7XODhpdJ7.png)