"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
With the melting away of snow and ice, spring had not only brought warmer weather and blooms of flowers – with it, it also brought mischief.
Deep within the silent forest, where pockets of snow still cling to the bottoms of the tall trees and hang in their now blooming branches, there is movement.
Nothing is seen except for a twitch of tail, full and white, bouncing quickly through the underbrush. Dark, slender paws thrum quietly against the dirt, barely touching the forest floor for more than a second. The smallish figure darts gracefully, her movement lithe and quick with each bound. Her fur is a brilliant reddish orange beneath the speckles of sunlight that shine through the open branches of the tall trees, the brilliant white of her underbelly flashing as she runs. Her fast moving body kicks up dust that catches the light, sparkling like gold in the springtime warmth.
Finally she halts, her ribcage expanding and tightening with her quickened breaths. A single paw is curled as if she is going to take another step, her black nose twitching as she inhales the scents and smells around her – scents that she had never smelled before in her equine form. She flicks her tail, her blazing and fiery red eyes peering out into the darkness of the forest.
Ears, brilliantly orange and white, flick backwards as her dark lips peel back to reveal her fangs, small and delicate but incredibly sharp, while the fur on her back begins to bristle. She crouches low, swishing her now-bushy tail back and forth behind her in agitation.
“Show yourself,” the little red fox snarls, her eyes searching through the trees for the figure she knows has been watching her.
The command is easily met with answer. Like a tan wraith Crevan rises from his crouched position behind a sparse bush, every inch of movement pushing him higher and higher until, finally, he is towering over the finely-made fox and looking down upon her with curiously surprised eyes. Nightlock in color, a blue-black bruise of an eyeshade, his gaze sweeps fore and aft of that red-gold body before one pale paw stretches forth to plant solidly into the earth. The others will follow and they draw out the rest of his massive form: a wolf of gargantuan measures, even more boldly made than his grandsire, who had been the largest of their lineage until Crevan was born. They are humorously at odds, the two of them, though at one point in their ancestry they were rather close to the trunk of one another.
But time has stretched their branches far away now and while they both maintain a predators stance, the differences could not be more apparent. “That’s a rather bold way to start things, little cousin.” The wolf-boy smarts, eager to make a joke of their close relation by saddling her with a familiar title. “But it probably saved your life. You look like an easy meal out here, you know. What with your flashy color and your playful racket.” He tells her. He means, of course, her little zipping back and forth that had stirred not only his attention but probably other unwanted eyes too.
“If you’re trying to be stealthy, you’re doing it all wrong.” He says with finality, because unlike her Crevan believes himself to be well-versed on these matters. He never stops to consider that stealth might not have been her objective. “Besides, you’re straying very close to kingdom territory and - trust me - that’s not where you want to be.”
In conclusion he sits, still peering down at her with that sour expression. It comes to him suddenly that this is his first encounter with another shifter; that’s what she’s got to be, isn’t it? Other, natural creatures didn’t speak their language. “I’m Crevan. Do you have any other forms?”
Then our skin gets thicker, living out in the snow
Still bristled and snarling, Merida is not disappointed when a figure, albeit a large one, emerges from the dense shadows of the tall trees. Her features are sharp and curious, miniscule and fine compared to the large wolf, who towers over her as his legs extend fully. Her ears press backwards, her small, sharp teeth still revealing themselves in a snarl, her tiny pink tongue showing in between the canines. Her tail swishes in aggravation, her shoulders bringing themselves together as she continues to crouch, ready to leap up to take a bite of him if needed. A brave little thing, despite their sizable differences, and the fact that her tiny mouth might not even hit the jugular of his thick, fur-covered neck even if she tried.
“It’s rather bold to hide in the shadows and wait for an unsuspecting passerby,” she retorts, though part of her new that his advice is sound and true – but her form is new to her, and though she would never admit it (especially to a stranger), she is still learning the ways of the fox and to leave her equine habits locked away while she was in this form. He walks around her, surveying her and studying her. Her wildfire red eyes follow him, her crouched position turning with him on slender, maroon-colored legs. Finally he sits and only then does the fur on her back begin to relax, though the snarl on her face seems rather permanent.
Stealth is something she hadn’t thought of yet, or even learned. His matter-of-factness, however, causes her to growl in response. “I know what I’m doing,” she lies, straightening her spine to mimic his posture, laying her bushy tail across her tiny and slender paws as she sits before him. The large wolf gives her his name and the black of her lips fall across her teeth, no longer snarling openly at him, but the blazing of her red eyes still bore into him with a fiery stare. “Merida,” she gives him, throwing her little black nose upwards as she did so. Still proud and unable to relinquish her haughty gaze, her eyes narrow slightly as she asks in a slightly less confident voice: “Is it that obvious?” Of course, referring to the fact that being a fox was obviously not her natural form, and that she wasn’t a very good one, at that.
Well, weren’t they the perfect pair? Two little know-it-all’s pushed together in one tiny forest. Crevan doesn’t mind. Her high-pitched retort only draws one brow up into a comical expression for a face so deadly, the tip of his own tail beginning to flick up and down with silent mirth. “Only as obvious as the nose on your face. Look at us -” He demands of her, turning his own eyes towards his hip, his back, before looking again at her proper, sitting form. “- We’re not normal in coloration, at least for Nature’s standards, and we talk.” He observes, hitting the final nail of truth into the coffin of her question.
With a listless thump the wolf-boy slides down onto his elbows, stretching out his thick form to lay comfortably over the forest floor. His mouth gapes, in a yawn, and both upper and lower sets of teeth gleam wickedly while his pink tongue curls at the back of his throat. His nape, rolled now into the semblance of a lady’s fur-lined collar, relaxes only once his jaws click easily together again. “Have you ever met another shifter before?” The wolf questions lightly, curiosity igniting his dark gaze as he comes to rest his heavy skull on outstretched paws.
A lonely ear flicks backwards and then rotates towards her once more. “I’m a third-generation wolf shifter. It’s in my bloodline. We’re supposed to recognize others like us from them.” He relates, dividing their shifter kin from the natural, dumb animals of Beqanna. He’s not trying to brag, quite the opposite; the very infliction of his tone is matter-of-fact and light. This other skin had been his whole life up until this point, had even been his ancestor’s life. The way of the Wolf, his dam had told him, and like she had learned from her sire, so had Crevan learned from her.
Perhaps, one day, Crevan’s own offspring might walk the same path. But for now it’s only himself and the odd she-fox. “No other form, then?” He ponders aloud, drawing their conversation back to the question she'd so craftily avoided. If she had another shape he'd be impressed, there were very few who did. All the same, his curiosity is piqued and, for a growing colt nearing independence, a piqued curiosity isn't something to be ignored.
Then our skin gets thicker, living out in the snow
She is prideful and arrogant; traits that are not reserved only for those she knew, but for strangers as well. Despite her newfound ability to shift into the cunning and curious creature known as the fox, she never would stop at trying to convince everyone around her of her own independence and strength. I’m liberated and free, she lies to herself, “No one must know I’m extremely terrified of ending up alone for the rest of my days.”
She sits erect, her spine perfectly straight as she taps the frosted white tip of her tail on the darkening fur of her front paws. Flawlessly confident in her poise, albeit a bit assertive despite the large canine that lounges in front of her. His jaws could easily snatch her up in a single movement, a single bite snapping her neck and leaving her lifeless.
The idea doesn’t even cross her mind. She has been in the clutches of death before and she had begged for mercy like a pathetic creature – she will never fear death again. For death is not her true fear.
He’s completely flabbergasted by her for some reason and Merida’s large ears flip back uninterestedly. “Not all of us are lucky enough to come from a lineage of greatness, you know,” she says thinly, throwing her tiny snout upwards as her fiery eyes roll. He is only advising her, informing her of the ways of the shifters, honestly probably only doing her a kindness, but Merida is not one for charity, nor for pompous creatures that deem themselves entitled to her adoration.
She lowers her gaze a bit curiously just a few moments after, however. She tilts her head a few degrees, realizing that he had just grouped her (what she sees as a nothing, a nobody, a forgotten soul since the moment of her birth) with him. The little fox snorts interestedly, rising onto her swift legs and swiftly striding closer to him, her paws nearly silent against the forest floor (see, she does take advice). Perhaps her new shifting ability now groups her into a different kind of class, a sort of clique where her kin is proud and strong.
“It’s always been just me,” she says honestly, though her voice still sways with prowess and confidence, as if that fact did not truly break her heart. “I’ve never met another shifter until now,” He didn’t need to know she had only recently become a shifter, it didn’t need to be said aloud.
Merida lowers herself onto her belly before him now, ears pricked forward. She rests her chin on her thin paws, black nose twitching as she inhales the air around him and his scent, memorizing it and investigating it. “No other forms,” she admits a little bit sadly, wondering if this somehow would make him dislike her. Why she cared if he disliked her or not, she couldn’t really be sure.
Crevan has always been a sullen sort of child. Interested in neither conversation nor friendship, the young wolf has grown up in the shadow of his mother’s watchful eye, and with pricks of disdain from his elder twin. It has made him, more or less, a hermit. But, his return from the otherworld of his nightmares has sparked a desire to change this - and Merida is the perfect candidate to test those poor social skills on. There’s something about the upturn of her mouth that continues to amuse him; Merida is clearly overcompensating and though Crevan is unsure why (there’s nothing special about him, from his perspective at least) every snide remark and ladylike gesture of her body excites him.
His tail thumps pleasantly, “No other shapes for me,” tilting from his lips as the two gaze at each other, mirror-like in their posture. “though I can do other things.” He offers. A feeling of exhilaration shoots through him now at the prospect of showing her, he’d never kept an audience before. His mother would say it was rash, to go about divulging one’s powers to stranger’s curiosity - “Fuck it.” Crevan thinks. He was his own man, was he not? He could decide for himself; Merida was good people, shifter, kin. It was all the reasoning he needed.
Rousing from his limp position, his head rises on stately shoulders, mute eyes alighting with fervent excitement for the show he was about to put on. Those strong, pale legs beneath him push him once more into a sitting position while his tail curls firmly over the ridge of one hip. A final glance in Merida’s direction - he smirks - and then his skull is tipping back, ivory eyelids closing over a sorrowful gaze while his lips split apart, curl over teeth to form a loose ‘O’, and then he is moaning. The howl rattles deep in his gut, builds in tempo, and hangs on a low, mournful note before bursting from his throat. With it, fire leaps from his tongue, his mouth, to plunge spear-like into the crisp air above them.
A hitch; the note drops, crashes, and with it the fire too snuffs out. Swallowing, the shifter returns his attention to the perched she-fox. “Fire breathing. More of a party trick than anything else.” He grumbles shyly before stretching out flat again. “Tell me more about you, please!” He whines, the loneliness of a youth spent nearly alone finally building in his chest. “Where are you from? Do you want to meet other shifters, like me? What’s it like to be a fox?” He rushes, breathless from his earlier display and the curiosity of meeting her. Crevan could stay like this all night, if Merida wanted, simply staring and trading questions.
It’s the first solid company he’s ever wanted.
Then our skin gets thicker, living out in the snow
omg he thinks he made a friend .. poor Merida. lol
She is comfortable with him, something that hasn’t happened with another in a very long time. She’s not exactly the best company, what with her privy to being a bit condescending and distrusting, as well as her fiery eyes that make it difficult to look at her straight in the eye. Most of the time she feels as if others are looking down on her, and not in the literal sense. A mixture of a lonely life and only a handful of good experiences has led to her inevitable inability to keep friends, though she has convinced herself she doesn’t need them.
Besides, a fox doesn’t need a pack, right? Not like a wolf does.
Merida has always been fascinated with the different abilities and powers that have been riddled throughout Beqanna much like a disease. For her entire life she has been traitless, despite parents with powers of their own. Oh sure, in her equine form, her black body speckled with iridescent red flecks and her bright, flaming mane and tail gave her the appearance of a traited individual, but she was as powerless as any other regular animal. She felt life cruel to her for leaving her without something to make her truly special in this unkind world, but her many prayers had been answered the day she found her body bending and her bones breaking to fit her soul inside of another capsule. However small and delicate and rather unimpressive, she found her fox-self rather appealing compared to the boring mare she had known her entire life.
Broad, triangular ears prick forward curiously as he pulls her in with his hinting at another ability, and she lifts her head from her paws quickly.
He’s already towering above her again, his form massive and truly beast-like as she watches him from her belly.
The howl that begins as a rumble in his chest slowly groans into his throat, the air pushing through his body forcefully as the sound increases in berth and depth. Foxes do not howl, not as beautiful as this, so she listens almost enchantedly, the auburn of her eyelids folding slowly over her piercing red gaze, mesmerized.
Her eyes widen as the flames erupt much like the cap of a volcano, wisping and sputtering from his mouth with ease. She leaps up in surprise with a sharp yelp, her darkened and agile legs bringing her a safe distance from the sudden intense heat that spills from his throat. As his note ends so does the spouting flames, the chill of autumn once again filling the air and the space between them with the heat’s absence. It had been an amazing spectacle. “Party trick?!” she repeats, jaw slackening in shock. “Party trick my ass,” she says again, this time a bit softer and almost a mumble as she brings herself before him again, a bit closer now than she had been a moment before his flaming spectacle.
From Crevan’s lips comes a flurry of questions and she tries her best to not act a bit excited that their conversation is not coming to a close. With a soft and sweet sigh, the she-fox sprawls lazily on her side before him, her belly stark with white against the darkness of the forest floor. “I guess you could say I’m from Loess,” she says rather boredly, stretching her thin paws as a yawn leaves her black-lined lips. She didn’t much like to be associated with a place, but it was the area she mostly stuck to, so she only can assume that Loess is technically where she lives. “Are there more of us?” she replies curiously with a few thumps of her bushy tail, a single red eye fixating on his now familiar stare.
“A fox, hm? I’m, um, still figuring it all out. I think my favorite thing is my senses – the things I can see and smell and hear are so unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before.” She pauses, rolling from her side to sit carefully on her elbows. “A wolf, though. That’s something.”
Perhaps it was a compliment – it was the closest thing she’s ever been to giving one.
Pack or no, we all need someone in this world. Though her shape is smaller, and her tongue much sharper, Crevan decides (quite firmly, for he’s a creature that tries not to revisit past decisions) that Merida should know the feeling of at least having a kindred spirit out in this big, strange country of theirs. He at least has his twin, his mother, and with creeping suspicion of her motives; Jah-Lilah. Merida, it seems, has no one. “Not if I can help it.” The shaggy wolf thinks as her jaw slacks in surprise. She’s entranced with Crevan’s ability and it almost makes him sad he doesn’t have anything else to show her (oh, he does, but that ability is still unknown to him - as it will be for many more years to come.)
So when she plops starry-eyed before him, a bit closer than she’d previously positioned herself, his wolfish grin and eager questions grow significantly longer. “Loess …” He ponders aloud, the tone taking a dreamy turn as his dark eyes slide unwittingly to the shadows of the wood around them. “I’ve been there before,” He remembers softly, or tries to at least, “so many hills, and jutting spires of sandstone that glimmer with eyes … hundreds of red eyes.” The boy murmurs, completely lost in himself and the nightmares of yesterday.
“That was the Underneath.” His conscious supplies readily, snapping him suddenly back into the present with the flush of embarrassment. His head turns once more to Merida, a sheepish grin exposing bright fangs for the moment. “Sorry, got carried away there.” Given as the only response to his strange actions. No need to worry her with scary stories and talk of dark magic. No need at all. The snippy fox is stretched thin like a prayer rug on the littered forest floor and Crevan pounces on the opportunity to talk about anything else, so he jumps eagerly into the topic which he is most familiar with: himself.
“The sights and smells are amazing, no doubt - but have you hunted yet? Killed prey and eaten?” He pressures her curiously. His first hunt had been a big day, something he’d worked up to from the moment he was a pup. “Now those tastes are out of this world.” He sighs, rolling onto his back as if the very mention of fresh blood was all he lived for. In short reply his stomach rumbles, and the chipper youth laughs. “Don’t let the shape fool you though - being Wolf is probably equally as pleasing as Fox. Besides, I’m too big to go most places quietly or without someone noticing.”
“You on the other hand-” He says, flipping topside once more to pin her with a pleasing look. “-I bet you go just about anywhere you please, hmm?”
Her mind doesn’t allow her to stop long enough to think about this, like she normally would, but he is so kind-hearted. If she had allowed herself any moment of reflection, her mind would draw her to the question of why would he be so nice, what he wants from her, why did he seek her out? For Merida, she cannot fathom that it could actually be possible for someone to be genuinely interested in learning about her for the sake of learning about her, you know, as a friend. Intentions are always acidic in her experience, but she is enjoying his presence too much. His candor and quiet excitement for meeting her, that she cannot pause for even one second to dwell on the idea that, quite normally, she would be spitting venom and ruining any chances of a great first impression.
Perhaps it is his youth, an innocence that has brought out another side in Merida, a side that has not been seen in years, that had quietly departed the moment she could not find her children nor her family, and has been dormant until this wolf-boy, this Crevan, had begun to feed the nearly dead and dying embers.
Loess. It is beautiful, she’ll admit. She’s not one for kings and queens and royals and ‘your highness’, but the place she has found herself calling home is quite lovely – she cannot ignore that. Of course, she’s rarely any help around the small, hilly land when it came to ‘kingdom duties’ that were expected of her – but her queen had yet to throw her out because of her lack of enthusiasm, so the black and red mare (or the black and red fox) continues to stay there.
He describes it perfectly and she listens intently, lazily rolling onto her back with her tiny front paws tucked in close to her white chest. Suddenly his description is not so accurate, and with concern she rolls onto her stomach, her one foreleg tucked beneath her and the other outstretched, her tiny and delicate head at a tilt. “What have you seen there?” She presses cautiously, her burning red eyes boring into him curiously.
“Killed?” she repeats after a few moments, bringing her chin to her chest in a soft sort of shock. The idea had never crossed her mind before, though now with it there in her thoughts, she swallows hard the hunger that now rolls in her belly and salivates her tongue. “No, I haven’t…” she trails off, though her voice is that of intrigue, and not disgust.
She grins at him now, a toothy grin with shining canines, throwing her black snout upwards in a prideful prowess as a slight yip leaves her black-lined lips. “I’ve always done as I pleased,” she admits with a slight glimmer in her ember-like eyes, “but as a fox, it is certainly much easier! I’m sure that the fact I don’t breathe fire keeps me pretty inconspicuous as well.” She laughs now, heartfelt and deep in her chest, her dark nose wrinkling as she did so.
If there was ever a laugh to fill one’s emptiness, Merida’s lighthearted bells would be the very thing. Crevan’s eyes dance from the corners of her dark lips, where the upturned edges bring light to her wild eyes; to the soft, velvety wrinkles over her nose that mirth can only sculpt. He reasons that this is a sight not often seen: Merida’s defenses brought so low that she might actually enjoy herself with him (of all creatures.) It feels like … victory. The young wolf has never felt this way before about someone else; it confuses and exhilarates him though he cannot name it. And still, she teases him! With a bark of his own deep tenor he joins her, fully aware of the joke, “Come winter you might not think it half so bad a trick.” given as his only rebuttal.
Her question of his knowledge on Loess won’t go unanswered, it only settles in his mind while their laughter ebbs once more to quiet. The sandstone canine rises for good this time, forest litter still clinging hopelessly to the mats of pale fur along his underbelly. “I’ve seen lots of things, and hunted them all.” He growls, mimicking a ferocious stance as he hunches suddenly, ears flattening against his skull in the same instant. His ivory lips glide up, over jagged, yellowed row upon row of teeth and his tongue peeks out from the tips of his incisors. He looks the part of story-beast, crouched low and gums exposed, as if he could spring upon an enemy twice his size and never fear defeat. A creature double his true age with a ferocity to match.
But his tail wags, only once, and then his body is smoothing out once more to blur the image of night terror and replace it with the wolf Merida has come to know this day. At full height once more the shifter tilts his head back to the fox, tongue lolling from the edge of his mouth as he pants, “You should learn to kill your own prey. I’ve decided I’ll train you.”
It’s as if he’s never come up with a better idea in all his life. The way his gaze relays a sense of pride in the thought, the sincerity and finality in his words - there was nothing to convince him otherwise. “We can start-” He begins, but his nose twitches faintly and then all animation in his face disappears to leave his expression slack, blank. Slapped by an invisible palm his head jerks about, ears smarting to attention while those dark eyes scan the forest around them. He whuffs, once or twice as confusion alights on his brow, dragging it down to shade his gaze. “Mother?” He thinks. Far from them, perhaps imperceptible to others without their enhanced hearing, a horse cries out.
“Later. We can start later.” Crevan speaks finally. Gone is the bright youth, replaced now by duty and a sullen, walled-off attitude. “I’ll find you, alright? Merida. Don’t forget - I’m Crevan.” He breaths hurriedly with the twist of his legs. Rushed now he pads swiftly to her side, unceremoniously burying the tip of his sandy nose into her scruff before she can protest or deny. He laughs; exhales a last, warm goodbye into the small shoulder beneath his lips, and leaps over her to dart quickly into the tangle of woodland.
They’ll see each other again, perhaps sooner than she thinks.
