"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
01-15-2017, 03:39 AM (This post was last modified: 01-15-2017, 03:39 AM by woolf.)
the wolves will chase you by the pale moonlight {drunk and driven by the devil's hunger}
Beqanna had quieted which, in theory, Woolf did not mind.
In practice though, it was dull. The time after the Reckoning had been fresh with confusion and fear and chaos. He was not malevolent in that he hungered for such emotions, but it had been the first time that he had been able to study them so easily. He couldn’t help but be fascinated by the ways everyone had reacted to the bleeding out of magic, the way some had seen it as nothing but a challenge to be overcome while others had mewled and broken, letting the waves of change break over their very backs.
He had not been overly pleased by the situation, the stallion feeling altogether hollowed out and empty in the aftermath, but he had taken it as a time to study—to learn. He had stayed mostly within the confines of the forest to watch others there, taking what tidbits of information he could glean from the interaction and tucking it away in his chest for safekeeping. Thankfully, he had not stayed that way for long. Eventually, he had his magic restored and all had been right with the world. Now, he only needed to restore Bright.
It was this thought that accompanied him today, his mood not cheery but not particularly sour as he walked through the pathways of the forest, his emerald green eyes peering out and studying the various creatures who walked by. It wasn’t until he saw her that he paused, his head tilting in her direction, his mouth flattening with curiosity. She was…different. And not just different in form. He had seen plenty of creatures who looked more abnormal than she, but what stirred in her heart was altogether odd.
Interest piqued, he pulled upon his magic and then dissolved within himself, his form imploding inward and then exploding outward into something uniquely new. It was the first time that he had taken the form of a stag (he much preferred the form of predators to prey) and while he wasn’t a fan, he assumed that he could do worse. He reached down to let his antlers scratch against his elegant, slender leg before he looked up, making his way toward the mare. One singular drop of blood curled down his shoulder in response to the shift, but Woolf didn’t pay it any mind. It was minor magic. A minor price to pay.
When he was near her, he lifted his regal head and let loose a throaty call for Fur.
01-17-2017, 12:35 PM (This post was last modified: 01-17-2017, 12:38 PM by fur.)
be humble, for you are made of earth
Fur is a ghost in the trees; the way she moves holds the implication of grace but it is a farce in comparison to the grace of the deer that raised her. Like them, she can never move as quietly or quickly in leaps and bounds as they do. She still adopts their mannerisms as much as she can, small hops here and there over a snowy log or an iced over stream, but she is still gangly and too much Other - too heavy, too horse, despite the fact that she is nothing more than skin and bones, and the antlers on her head.
Today, she is brave.
Adventurous, even.
Fur is not supposed to be here; not amongst the pines anyway. She did not ask permission from her keeper to leave his forest, but she needed more space from the Others - they did not understand her, stared her down, made her feel small and shameful. Her need for the deer trails and snowy thickets had become too great to ignore, so she gave in to her baser instincts and snuck out of the stallion’s redwood forest. Maybe he knew, maybe he saw her go and did not stop her, allowing her this small freedom but she did not care, did not think overly long on it because she felt no remorse for not asking him beforehand - Fur did not ask to do things she felt necessary to her, like breathing, or trail-walking.
She finds a thicket that holds their days’ old scent, but these are not deer that she knows - just that they passed this way long ago. Their stale smells comfort her, even as she noses each bed of grass that belonged to a fawn or doe. The rushes are crackly and brown underfoot, making too much noise until she grows bored of their old places and moves back down along the snowy disused trail. Sometimes, she reaches out to the bracken and mouths it, her flat teeth hardly stripping away the bark from the twigs. If she’s lucky, she finds a lonesome berry and pops it back onto her teeth, enjoying the tartness of the juice as it splashes her tongue.
Fur is happy, sort of.
In a lonely one-of-a-kind way, she supposes.
It is like the forest knows her heart, knows what lies within it - deer, and simple grace. The forest gives him up in soft noise and a call that makes her heart stop for a moment in her chest than start up again, thumping fast and happy. He is impressive and calls to her, and Fur goes to him because how can she not? The stag summoned her, and she could only be obedient to the throaty noise that made her ears stand upright and her black eyes shine brighter than before. She answers him in a farcical high-pitched mew typical of fawns, but comes from the thin column of her horse’s throat instead and it sounds all wrong.
Fur stops just short of him, her head low but her eyes never leave his face, asking.
But for what, even she cannot even begin to know the tangled up secrets of her own heart.
the wolves will chase you by the pale moonlight {drunk and driven by the devil's hunger}
She came, as he had known that she would.
There was never any option except for her obedience, except for her bending to his will, like a sapling before a storm. Thankfully, for her sake at least, he had no nefarious motives. He never did particularly enjoy the sound of screams and death, at least of those related to him, brought harm. He much preferred the life that burst forth, the power it brought him, the surge beneath his skin. That he enjoyed.
Still, he appreciates that events unfold as he had hoped they would, and his green eyes, peering out from the handsome face of the stag are appreciative as they study her. That had been his real purpose; it was always his purpose. To learn. To gather information like weapons. So many made the mistake of thinking that to gain power in this world, one must have strength so that they may shed blood. But Woolf knew better. He knew that the real power lay in knowledge. The powerful simply knew how to wield it.
Feeling generous, he lets loose the magic from his chest with a soft cry toward her, the ropes of it visible as it extended toward her, glowing brightly as they wrapped around her and then sunk into her, dissolving against her flesh. And then, the same slight of hand that had turned his body into that of a stag, reached into her and gave her back the form of a doe, if only temporarily. The cut on his shoulder deepened, the blood spilling over, but he barely noticed it, long used to the price he paid for the magic he performed.
Taking a step back, he admired his handiwork, looking at the form he had created, the gift he had given her. And then his eyes moved upward, finding her gaze and holding it, curious for her reaction.
02-21-2017, 11:03 PM (This post was last modified: 02-21-2017, 11:07 PM by fur.)
be humble, for you are made of earth
Fur is neither deer nor horse;
She is the berry hanging fat from the branch, dangling in mid air, caught between suspended animation and an innocent temptation - berries sway and dance in the breeze, or they fall and break open, leaking tart juice and the sweet innards of themselves all over the earth.
Fur feels like the berry being eyed by the toothy bear, the stealthy wolf, the curious crow - his look says it all, but mostly - life, being alive, growing fat and rich off blood rushing in veins and breath in the lungs. She feels like she is being squeezed, tested, reshaped - and she is! He remakes her in his image; in ropes of magic and stag’s cries, and then a scent sharpens the air, rankles her nostrils and she draws her eyes to the price he pays as the skin splits just that much more on his shoulder. He bleeds, and she stares at him from eyes more slanted and set in a doe’s face, and she can feel how her bones and skin are different but somehow familiar, just not her - as she had originally been, but the her she ought to have been yet never was.
Until now.
Because of him.
She tries to look down at herself and the legs are slenderer (and quicker, she knows how swift those legs can be!), cloven in hoof rather than rounded like small half moons that leave shallow impressions in the earth. Her shape feels lighter - more airy, as she turns in a half circle to regard her spotless hide and small flicking tail that is all fur, no long tangle of burr and hair. She ends up looking at him, looking out of eyes that feel familiar but strange, these doe’s eyes keep his stag’s gaze, green and imperious and she is unable to look away, feeling the pinprick of awareness that runs down on her spine.
Curious, she thinks, mistaking it for a hunger that accounts for the brightness of his gaze that forces her to look down and away, her nose suddenly snuffling through the grass for either a scent or an acorn. Moments later, she lifts her head to look at him again, her eyes as bright and curious as his own. She was not sure if their throats were capable of speech like her odd horse-throat had been, but she tries to ask him why - why her, why this, why? It seemed too good to be true, too impossible to be possible for all that the cells in her body screamed deer and not half-deer half-horse (mutation!). Fur cannot believe this will last, even as she turns in a tight circle before looking at him - he was captivating, but had to be something more than stag for all that his blood and his smell said he was.
Magic, her feeble brain mumbled. Magic and the very things the forest told her about - gods and mysteries, like seeds that sprouted into great trees and those few that were more than what they seemed, like him. What are you? Her big dark eyes seem to ask.
the wolves will chase you by the pale moonlight {drunk and driven by the devil's hunger}
She is curious in her awareness, in the way she awakens in the body, the very being of her stretching and yawning into existence, settling into this new, airy form as if it is the only one she has ever worn—the only one she should ever know. His green eyes peer out from this new skull, the weight of the rack upon him heavy and reminding, the blood smeared across his prey’s shoulder coppery and biting. She delights in the form, the wild instincts that tangle with her soul pulling her outward and yet—
and yet.
Her gaze turns to him, hungry for answers, for understanding, the voice not quite finding its way up and out of the strange, alien throat. He catches the questions on the air and steps toward her, the wet of his nose finding the delicate curve of her throat, sniffing at the wild on her. “This will not last,” his voice deep and wholly the same as it rings out, acknowledging the concerns that swirl into the air between them. “But it will last long enough.” Enough for her to experience life on the other side of the veil, at least.
He shakes his head at her next question, because it is the wrong one, because it is ill-fitted in this space between them, their wild pulses thudding in their ears. “It doesn’t matter what I am,” he dismisses it and turns toward the trees, the smallest of nods motioning her forth. She would come, he knew, because she did not have a choice—not when her form is linked to the magic that pulses in his chest, that bleeds out from his shoulder and onto the soft forest ground. Graceful legs spring him forward and away into the shadows, the muscles different and yet the same, his gait foreign but quickly becoming familiar.
Come, the words silently weave into her mind. We have things to discover.
02-25-2017, 07:16 PM (This post was last modified: 02-25-2017, 07:17 PM by fur.)
be humble, for you are made of earth
She is alive.
Has come alive, in a way that is different from before.
The mishmash of both species has become but one, a shape that she has seen and nursed from even but never known as her own. It has her now, graceful and lean and a leaping power coils in her hindquarters. She is alive, and the air in her nostrils is sharp and sweet as is his scent. However, her delight is cut short as he affirms what she has already surmised - this will not last, he tells her in a voice commanding and deep.
I know, her eyes tell him - her mouth still mute.
(She has never fully grasped the concept of language to begin with.)
He says it will last long enough and she believes him, because he is a magnificent stag and she is a doe almost besotted by the majesty of him. How could she not believe him when he has given her this much, this small taste at the self that had lain trapped inside the horse’s skin? Fur realizes that he has given her a gift, that is what the blood on his shoulder means and she does not know how to repay him. She has nothing to give but herself and whatever he asks of her, commands of her because she cannot disobey him now.
Her question goes unanswered and she does not press him as he turns to the forest, motions her to it. She can feel her pulse quicken, needing not his command to come because she springs after him on eager new legs that express joy and grace in bounding effortless leaps. What finds her is not language, but laughter - pure, raw laughter that comes unbidden from her throat as she joins him in this venture, or is it a quest?
Fur is quite curious to follow him and discover; he seems so certain, as a stag should, and she can do little more than leap and follow and revel in the way that her shape is light and strong, and she laughs again.
the wolves will chase you by the pale moonlight {drunk and driven by the devil's hunger}
He has no destination in mind as he makes his way steadily through the forest—he has no thought except the wildness that now pushes up from the earth and into his breast. With each passing moment, he feels himself relinquishing his hold on the realities of his world and turning his face toward the more magical, the more fantastical properties of their encounter. It is if the stag whose form he now possesses was an actual being who inhabited the body as much as he—as if he has but slipped into another identity.
Woolf marvels at the instincts that pulse in his veins.
Sharp green eyes find the doe who runs by his side and then he turns his gaze toward the path that they cut through the twining trees, their hooves finding mulch and pine before springing away. In silence, they run, the only sound the steady huff of his breath and the occasional call, low and throaty and primal.
It is only when the trees give way to the light, watery as it may be, that he slows his pace, his steady legs slowing their tempo upon the ground. The forest around them opens up to reveal a clearing, where water glitters beneath the dying sun and the last rays of the slant through the crowded branches. Whether this was but a private spot he has happened upon or a creation of his own making is unknown, and he does not say either way. Instead he finds her eyes and studies her, wondering if she would be pleased with it.
After snorting and shaking his head, impressive antlers swinging, he walks over to the water and lowers his head, drinking it down until it wets his muzzle and runs down his chin. Then he looks back and stills.
